Am I the only one getting the feeling that Sam Raimi‘s Oz: The Great and Powerful is a film Disney hopes audiences won’t be able to differentiate between Tim Burton’s massive Alice in Wonderland feature? Sure, the stories might not be exactly the same and yet a human is still whisked off to a magical land of CGI filled with creatures and giant plantlife and it looks almost exactly the same from a visual perspective. In fact, why not just call it Oscar in Wonderland?
Alice made the Mouse House over $1.02 billion back in 2010, does L. Frank Baum’s “Oz” have the same kind of global cache?
The film imagines the origins of L. Frank Baum’s beloved character, the Wizard of Oz. When Oscar Diggs (James Franco), a small-time circus magician with dubious ethics, is hurled away from dusty Kansas to the vibrant Land of Oz, he thinks he’s hit the jackpot–fame and fortune are his for the taking–that is until he meets three witches, Theodora (Mila Kunis), Evanora (Rachel Weisz) and Glinda (Michelle Williams), who are not convinced he is the great wizard everyone’s been expecting. Reluctantly drawn into the epic problems facing the Land of Oz and its inhabitants, Oscar must find out who is good and who is evil before it is too late. Putting his magical arts to use through illusion, ingenuity–and even a bit of wizardry–Oscar transforms himself not only into the great and powerful Wizard of Oz but into a better man as well.
Oz: The Great and Powerful arrives in theaters on March 8, check out the new trailer directly below.
