A new take on the various L. Frank Baum books from which ?The Wizard of Oz? tale was born will be explored by Warner Bros., according to Variety. Baum created a total of 15 stories that surround the Oz legacy.
Village Roadshow Pictures will team up with Warner Bros. by taking an idea hatched by Spawn creator Todd McFarlane and screenwriter Josh Olson. The former will produce while the latter will create a script.
?McFarlane has a vision of Oz that is a dark, edgy and muscular PG-13, without a singing Munchkin in sight,?
?I saw those toys, and Dorothy as some bondage queen isn?t something I want to do,? Olson told Fleming. ?The appealing thing about the Baum books to me is how wildly imaginative they are. There are crazy characters from amazing places. I want this to be ?Harry Potter? dark, not ?Seven? dark.?
?My pitch was ?How do we get people who went to ?Lord of the Rings? to embrace this?? ? McFarlane said. ?I want to create [an interpretation] that has a 2007 wow factor. You?ve still got Dorothy trapped in an odd place, but she?s much closer to the Ripley from ?Alien? than a helpless singing girl.?
source:
http://www.sliceofscifi.com