First, if you didn't know already, The Wizard of Oz is returning to 300 IMAX theaters in the U.S. & Canada next Friday... in 3-D! Find out if a theater near you will be playing the movie here.
The 3-D version of the film opened in a handful of theaters in Australia last weekend, and though it didn't perform at the box office, we now have an idea of what this version of the film is like thanks to a few reviews...
"It actually improved the viewing experience, particularly in the monochrome sections making the Kansas storm even more threatening. The academic format has been wisely retained." -John Bale, The Blurb Magazine
"Fortunately, this 3-D transfer is tasteful and subtle and simply immerses audiences into the film a little more, rather than reaching out and throttling them as some 3-D movies try to do." -The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly Film Show
"The 3-D gives the film a little extra pop in places, but much like other conversions, it falls into the background after a while, likely to be all but forgotten by the time we get our first technicolour glimpse of Munchkinland." -Jonathon Natsis, Film Ink
You can watch a neat featurette on how the 75-year old film was restored and then converted to 3-D here.
In other news, four separate TV shows inspired by Oz are now in development at The CW, NBC, CBS and Syfy. The CW's show is called Dorothy Must Die, and paints Dorothy as an evil fascist ruler who stirs up an underground movement to rid her of her crown. NBC's show is called Emerald City, and is described as a dark reimagining of the Oz books. CBS' show is called Dorothy, and is said to be a medical drama set in modern-day New York. Syfy's show is a post-apocalyptic mini-series called Warriors of Oz, to be directed by Timur Bekmambetov.
But, fans of ABC's fantasy drama Once Upon A Time shouldn't be discouraged by all of this news, because show creators Adam Horrowitz and Eddy Kitsis have revealed that they still hope to incorporate Oz into their show in the future. Read about more that here.
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| It's certainly been hinted at that Oz does exist within the same world as Once Upon A Time. In the show's pilot, Henry flips through his storybook, and we can see that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is certainly there. |
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| And we know from an episode in the first season that there is an accessible way to get to Oz... |
That's it for this week! Check back next Friday night for my review of The Wizard of Oz: An IMAX 3-D Experience.
I could see a movie about characters that are loosely based on The Wizard of Oz, but I don't see how such a premise could sustain an entire series as it's expected to do in this medical drama- I mean, they did it in one episode of Scrubs and it was clever, but one episode was kind of enough.
ReplyDeleteI don't know enough about Emerald City to have an opinion on it. Dorothy Must Die sounds potentially interesting, especially if it's somewhat faithful to the books. I'm positive a lot of people won't like the idea of Dorothy being evil, but I suppose a lot could have happened to her in over a century. Maybe she got fed up with Ozma's debatable ineptitude as a ruler and overthrew her (I like Ozma, but I've recently become familiar with the term "Ozma fail" while reading some of Mari Ness' reviews of the books).