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.

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.