Disney’s newest film is the big budget venture Oz The Great And Powerfuland many are expecting Sam Raimi‘s 3-D origin story about Wizard who inhabits the Emerald Kingdom to become the first blockbuster of 2013. That would be a great thing for the industry. So far 2013 has started off with more of a whimper than a bang.
The reason people are excited are many; L. Frank Baum’s Oz books have been beloved staples of young adult libraries for over 80 a century, Sam Raimi is a talented director and the youthful cast is made up several actors who are on the verge of breaking out as the stars of the future. James Franco, Rachel Weisz, Mila Kunis and especially Michell Williams are all extremely well liked by audiences around the world even if they haven’t become major stars yet. Which is exactly what producer Joe Roth was looking for when he went to cast the movie.
“As a producer, besides the idea, casting is the most fun and I wanted to make sure we had a cast that would stand the test of time.” Roth explained at the Oz press conference as he sat next to Franco and Kunis.
Later, I talked to the legendary producer of such recent films as Snow White and the Huntsman, Knight and Day and Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland about how he cast Oz, how hard it is to make movies in 2013 and why he believes Sam Raimi was the best choice for this return to the legendary world of Oz. Here is that exclusive interview.
Bill Cody (BC): I was excited to hear about this movie, with this cast and this director. How did you put it together?
Joe Roth (JR): It’s not easy. It’s not easy at all. You kind of make a wish list and then you try and get that first choice. So I developed the screenplay and I gave it to Sam. At first he wouldn’t even read it because he loved the original and he thought we were doing a remake. I said, “No, no, we’re not doing a remake. We’re doing an origin story.” So then he read it and he loved it and he wanted to do it. That was step one.
Step two was trying to find a cast, a cast that had already done some things but were all on their way up. I have a 28-year-old son who’s not likely go to a Disney franchise movie, and I wanted to make it so not only people who go to Disney movies would go to see the film, but had a hipness to it.
BC: Speaking of which, Michelle Williams. She’s an actor who has picked some very interesting parts. Here she looks like a movie star, though.
JR: Yes, she does.
BC: How did you get her to do a big movie like this?
JR: I tried really hard to get her in this picture. She was living upstate. She has a child. She wasn’t really interested in working at the time because she had the chore of going out on the publicity tour for My Week with Marilyn. But I just really didn’t give up. At a certain point she came out to Michigan and felt comfortable with the people around her. She felt comfortable with Sam and she jumped on.
BC: That’s a tough role playing a character who is basically good. It’s almost like playing the straight man, which is very difficult for actors to pull off.
JR: Absolutely. It’s a lot easier playing the villain. She’s so luminescent in the role, though. It’s almost like she’s a CG character. Like China Girl or Findley, the flying monkey. She’s so good in the role.
BC: Rachel Weisz is another actress who’s known for her serious roles. She looked like she was having a lot of fun playing a wicked witch.
JR: She had a lot of fun. She and I met a month beforehand. I talked to her about this movie but the complication was she was also going to do Bourne. What people don’t understand is, she shot half of her part for Oz and then we let her go, she shot Bourne and then she came back and shot the second half of Oz. As a producer, you are then very [hopeful] the other movie doesn’t go over schedule. So that was a challenge.
BC: Speaking of challenges. You’re someone who has run a major studio…
JR: Two. 20th Century Fox and Disney.
BC: And you ran your own independent studio as well.
JR: Revolution Studios, yes.
BC: Is it harder to make movies today than it was in the past?
JR: Yes, the studios are all cut back on the number of movies they want to make. They want to make fewer, bigger movies. The — what you would call a B-movie — the lower budget movies, the studios don’t want to make.
BC: And you’ve been making big movies since you came back to Hollywood.
JR: I’ve made four big movies and now I’m going to make two smaller movies.
BC: Which movies are those?
JR: A film called Heaven is for Real. Which is based on a best selling book from last year. A thirteen million dollar movie. The other is an original screenplay called Million Dollar Arm that I developed with the director Tom McCarthy (Win Win, The Visitor) which Jon Hamm is going to star in. A small movie. It’s, in a way, a baseball picture. These teenagers from India, who enter a contest with 17,000 other kids [to see who the best pitcher is]. The twist is they are cricket players. These two boys get picked and live with this sports agent for two months and learn to play baseball and end up getting picked by the Pittsburgh Pirates. It’s based on a true story.
BC: I’m glad to hear you’re doing a couple of smaller movies.
JR: You just have to be story driven. It’s hard to imagine a studio these days where a Cuckoo’s Nest, a Mean Streets and a Taxi Driver would get made made.
BC: They don’t seem to get made at Sundance either but let’s talk about your actors for minute. When I watched James Franco in this movie I was reminded of the line in Sunset Boulevard, “We didn’t need dialogue. We had faces.” Franco has a face that seems tailor made for the big screen.
JR: Yes, he does.
BC: Were you looking for actors that radiate on the big screen?
JR: I wouldn’t be that specific. What I was looking for was a quartet of actors, that if we were lucky enough to make a movie that stood the test of time, this would be a memorable role in a memorable career. And Franco is a brilliant kid who can do anything. While all three women have, in my opinion, big careers in front of them. The idea was to get hot actors, not physically hot actors, but people who were sought after and would have big careers after this.
BC: Well,I think you found a quartet who do light up the screen. And we don’t seem to have a lot of actors who do that right now.
JR: No, we don’t. I’ve been looking for Steve McQueen for 25 years and still haven’t found him. My office is still plastered with Steve McQueen.
BC: Is it really?
JR: Yes.
BC: Was Sam Raimi your first choice for directing Oz the Great and Powerful?
JR: Yes, he was. What attracted me to Sam was when you’re making a movie this size you want someone who has been to the mountain. And with Spider-Man he went to the mountain. You want somebody who understands a movie on a big scale. You also want somebody who has heart because essentially it is a small story with a very big backdrop. It is hard to find directors who do both well.
BC: Aren’t all great stories intimate at heart. My favorite movies are small stories inside a big backdrops.
JR: It is hard to find a director who can work well with actors and also have the technical expertise to pull a movie like this off. They are a rare find. Sam is one who can actually do it.
BC: Finally. You have the soccer team up in Seattle that you love. You’ve made a lot of movies already. How much longer are you going to make films?
JR: Until they tell me to stop.
Oz The Great And Powerful is in theaters now.
