American McGee To Adapt Oz As Movie

Ant writes "According to ShackNews and Hollywood Reporter, American McGee's "Oz" is back on track in several ways. Infogrames dropped the Wizard of Oz based videogame a while ago, but it's being revived now that McGee will be writing an Oz movie script for producer Jerry Bruckheimer. McGee said: "The hero of the story, a teenage boy named Arthur, is whisked away from Earth to an Oz in turmoil. Like Neo in 'The Matrix' films, the boy makes a hero's journey and comes to grips with his powers," he said. "What Jerry Bruckheimer was able to do with 'Pirates of the Caribbean' was simply brilliant, and since 'Oz' is similar in tone to that film franchise, I'd like to follow that model.""

Comments

Translation

[MyLongNickName]

"What Jerry Bruckheimer was able to do with 'Pirates of the Caribbean' was simply brilliant, and since 'Oz' is similar in tone to that film franchise, I'd like to follow that model."

Babel Fish translation: "It made a crapload of money. Rather than go a different direction, which requires creativity, I'd like to copy it and make my own crapload of money."

That Babelfish gets better and better with each passing year!

Re:Translation

[th3walrus]

Wow, with a movie description that includes "it's like The Matrix or Pirates of the Caribbean", how can you go wrong? Hell, why now throw some other stuff in there. It's Gone With The Wind meets Citizen Kane in space like Star Wars... and they all can do Matrix stuff. Crapfest coming up...

On a more serious note, why does the Dorothy of this movie need "powers"? That's always been part of the draw to the Wizard of Oz. An innocent normal girl ends up in this strange land and has to make friends to surivive and find her way home. Give this character super powers and I don't see how it's going to be any good.

American McGee = Overrated Trash

Re:Translation

[bluephone]

He could at least have kept Dorthy a girl, rather than changing it to a boy. After all, isn't the core of the film "A young girl awakens in an alien landscape to discover she has accidentally killed a woman. She later conspires with three strangers to kill again."? :)

I still want to see his take on "Strawberry Shortcake". ;)

Not True To The Original

[TheWanderingHermit]

I've never heard of American McGee, but I used to read the Oz books to my students when I taught elementary school. After looking over the American McGee site, I can't see that it has any real, significant connection to the originals. For one thing, there's a reference to "the darker side of Oz" and Frank Baum made it clear there was no darker side. His intent was to create a land of wonder and amazement without the creatures that caused kids nightmares.

I've never been able to stand it when movies or updates sanitized stories for mass consumption, and I find I'm feeling the same way about taknig something that was created with specific intent and twisting that intent into something opposite of it.

So, after checking out the site, it looks to me like American McGee took someone else's creation and re-did it without a lot of what made the original special. It'd be kind of like taking the Terminator series and remaking it without evil robots. So am I missing something about American McGee, or is it the same kind of "ignore the original and remake in our way" stuff as what I just described?

Re:Not True To The Original

[hal2814]

"For one thing, there's a reference to "the darker side of Oz" and Frank Baum made it clear there was no darker side."

Maybe he confused Frank Baum's Oz with the HBO prison show "Oz." That would explain it. I saw one episode where a guy moved cells because he was afraid of his cellmate, but he ended up in a cell where he had to be someone's girlfriend. That's definately a dark side.

Re:Not True To The Original

[tyndyll]

You have obviously never heard of American McGee I'm afraid. American McGee is probably most famous around these parts for the "Alice" game causing a dispute between American Greetings and Penny Arcade. His take on Alice was .... interesting .... to say the least, touching much more on the insanity of the books that the Disney cartoon. I would say that his take on the Oz will be much closer to "Return to Oz" that "The Wizard..." - those flying monkey sstill give me nightmares...

Re:Not True To The Original

[Mechanik]

For one thing, there's a reference to "the darker side of Oz" and Frank Baum made it clear there was no darker side. His intent was to create a land of wonder and amazement without the creatures that caused kids nightmares.

Hmm...

Bitchy old woman that wants to kill cute little dog, CHECK.

Evil witch killed by falling house, CHECK.

Grotesque flying monkeys that have been giving kids nightmares for decades, CHECK

Evil witches that melt into a puddle of goo, CHECK.

Yep, no dark side whatsoever!


Mechanik

Re:Not True To The Original

[TheWanderingHermit]

Try reading the books. I never said anything about the movie (and I'm referring ONLY to the 1939 movie, with Judy Garland, not any of the others).

Oh, and as a small point of trivia, when, in the movie, you see the Witch prepare to order the Flying Monkeys, notice that the monkey with her hands her a strange hat. That's a small reference to an important point in the book (that matters later in the book, but not in the movie). The monkeys were not grotesque and were not evil. Whoever had possession of the magic hat could control the monkeys 3 times. The only reason they followed the witch's orders were because of the hat.

And in the book the witches were not as frightening. Mean, but not nearly the threat they were in the movie. Miss Gulch, who wanted to kill Toto, was NEVER in the book. There was hardly any development of the Kansas characters in the book (including the Professor who, in Oz, was the Wizard and other characters). In the book, it is also NOT a dream.

There are a HUGE number of liberties taken in the movie that have nothing to do with the book. There is also a LOT that was omitted from the movie, like what happened to the other characters at the end. (And one last point of trivia: as I said, in the books, Oz is NOT a dream. It is real and in the 5th book, when Uncle Henry realizes the farm is failing, Dorothy has them all transported to Oz where Uncle Henry and Auntie Em run a farm in Munchkinland from then on.)

On the upside,

[Canthros]

Frnak L. Baum's body, which is undoubtedly spinning in his grave, can probably be utilised to generate a not insignificant amount of power. It won't be clean power, admittedly, owing to the generation of reels and reels of garbage film, but it ought to rather cleaner than, say, coal.

HBO's Oz

[{8_8}]

For a split second, I thought McGee was going to adapt the HBO prison series Oz. I found myself wondering how he could possibly make beatings, stabbings and prison rape any darker than they already are.

Disney

[Ian_Bailey]

Disney has followed a simmilar pattern for its entire history.

Either it was neutering the most frigtening parts of the stories (Snow White, Litte Mermaid, etc.), or just re-inventing a new story (Treasure Planet).

I don't see anything wrong with it, as this is really the purpose of copyright expiration. New storytellers can re-imagine elements of old stories and mix them into something entirely new.

This is different than taking something that's currently has copyright protection (see Lion King vs Kimba the White Lion), making money for a big idea-starved company that the original creative artist should be earning. Determining what the limit for copyright expiration is a tricky issue, but it should eventually expire for precisely this reason.

Re:Disney

[TheWanderingHermit]

I agree with the point about copyright expiration. I like seeing new works that can include old works (for example, "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid"), but I think there's a limit. I guess I should point out that I'm a writer (I started my current business to finance a digital film production company so I could shoot my own scripts MY way instead of selling them and seeing them re-written 20 times). Maybe that's why I feel the original creation should be treated with respect. It's also why I don't like remakes. For example, "Casablanca" was a great film, and there's no need to remake it. The remake of "Psycho" a few years ago seemed totally pointless to me -- especially since it was a "shot for shot" remake.

If a writer/artist can't come up with something original, I'd rather not see them do anything with it at all. I don't like ripping off another person's work, signing your name, and passing it off as new (which is one reason I never bothered to see "Treasure Planet" -- the book is great and if it were done RIGHT on film, there's no need to do it with spaceships instead).

I don't like Disney neutering, as you say (good term) work. I think it's wrong, and I think it's just as wrong to take something tame (like Oz) and darken it. I'd rather see the people involved showing enough creativity and imagination to come up with something on their own.

On the other hand, I do have to add that "Forbidden Planet" (a re-write of "The Tempest") is one of my favorite SF films.

Re:Anybody remembers Alice?

[lhouk281]

From American McGee's website, http://www.americanmcgee.com/blosxom.cgi/home/

wow, do people ever want to know what's up with the alice film. well, here's the full story: while an employee of electronic arts i conceived of and produced "american mcgee's alice". this meant that i (along with my exec producer rj berg) wrote the story, drove the art style, choose the development team, managed the development process, yadda, yadda. as an employee of ea i didn't "own" the idea even though i created it.

for me alice was more than just a game, it was an attempt to prove to ea that we could create original properties and exploit them in markets other than games. it seemed to me then (and even more now) that the games industry shouldn't rely solely on hollywood for their game ideas and more importantly, that we as an industry could come up with ideas that hollywood would make into movies. i've now come to realize that game publishers care less about original ideas than they do "pre-sold awareness" (ie, someone else's marketing dollars)... but that's a topic for another day.

so... before the game was completed i (along with two film producers i knew at the time) pitched the idea of an alice movie to dimension films. bob weinstien (head of the studio) bought the idea "in the room" based on a 30 second film-esque trailer and nothing more. then began "the fun". well known screenwriter john august was brought in to write a film treatment, which he did. the treatment was great. somehow the studio neglected to notice it. john went off to work on something else. the studio then wanted him on the project. too late. after that literally dozens of writers took various stabs at ideas for the film story. apparently they couldn't just go with the original story from the game. wes craven was brought in to direct. things seemed to happen. then nothing happened for a long time. then more nothing. then in typical hollywood style the film studio became displeased with those film producers i mentioned earlier and vice versa. no one was friends anymore. the alice film project was dead in the water because of the relationship between studio and producers. nice. even more nothing happened.

then recently... the film rights moved to a new studio, fox. they, like everyone else in hollywood that i've talked to, love the project, are going to make it, blah, blah, blah. there are new producers attached to the project. its status is "in development". that's it, that's all i know. personally, i think an oz film will get made before alice sees the light of day.

now, no more questions about this. i don't know anything else. i *really* don't know who's going to direct, who's playing alice, when the movie is coming out, or if there will even be a movie for that matter. these things can sometimes take years. be patient... and to pass the time lets play a game called "who can go the longest without asking american a question related to the alice film". ready? go!