A couple Ozzy announcements...

So, I've been thinking about what to do at this blog (I've posted a couple entries at my other Blogger blog lately) and I think I've thought of a blogging project. But more on that in a moment.

First off, I got contacted by RAMstar Studios, who says they're producing a live action movie adaptation of Donald Abbott's How The Wizard Came To Oz, set to be released to theaters in 2018, directed by Cole S. McKay. Producers are BJ Plott, Dan Guardino, and Derrick Iloni. The budget is a modest $35 million, but it's not always about how much you have as much as how you use it.

The synopsis provided is as follows...

When a runaway balloon carries Oscar Zoroaster Diggs to the war torn Land of Oz he inadvertently manages to bring peace to its people, and finds himself hailed as a great wizard. Now he has to defeat a vengeful witch to maintain the peace.

That's really all the information I have. You can check out the RAMstar Studios Facebook page (where I stole that graphic from) to check out their other works and see if they have any updates.

Donald Abbott initially wrote How The Wizard Came To Oz as a short story for Oziana before reworking it into a book for Books of Wonder's Emerald City Press in the early 1990s, following it up with a few other Oz books. Recently, he adapted the story into a film script, which is the script RAMstar is using.

They did confirm that Donald Abbott's currently running webcomic adaptation of the story is based on the script, so go ahead and look there if you want to see what you can expect.


 Other news is that another Oz-themed Kickstarter is getting ready to wrap up and has just under $1000 to go before its goal is reached. The Wicked Wizard of Oz is a choose-your-own-adventure style RPG gamebook which is "inspired by The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, but with a dark Dieselpunk twist."

THE WICKED WIZARD OF OZ is set after the events of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Dorothy finds herself transported back to the marvellous Land of Oz and hunted by the Wicked Witch of the West's flying monkeys. But how can the Witch be back? And why has Dorothy been brought back to Oz? There's only one way to find out.
Joined by her friends - the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Lion - Dorothy sets off for the Emerald City. Surrounded by enemies on all sides, will you uncover the secrets of THE WICKED WIZARD OF OZ?

I was contacted about this just today, so I don't really have any more information than what can be found on the Kickstarter website. But lovers of all things Oz might want to look into supporting this to help it happen and get their hands on some unique Oz collectibles.

So, finally, what to do on the blog after blogging for so long? Aside from blogging about Oz books I've read (which I've even fallen behind on that as I read a new edition of Wonderful Wizard and Marvelous Land on my return from Oz Con I meant to write about), it feels like most of the ideas there would be to write about I have written about!

Well, I had an idea. How about breaking down the history of Oz and our own culture into a timeline and begin going in for indepth looks at the world L. Frank Baum created his stories in, and how his stories later influenced that world? The scope is wide enough to basically include anything related to Oz. A blog about Baum's life might be flanked by examinations of his work at the time or about where he lived and what was going on in the US and the world. I'd certainly welcome guest posts.

I'd like to tie podcasts into this as well, I could certainly see me inviting David Maxine to discuss the 1902 Wizard of Oz musical. "Movies of Oz" would run separately, but blogs about the movies would certainly pop up, perhaps multiple posts.

Basically, whenever we're done, what we'd have would hopefully be a massive body of work about Oz.