When the trailer for Sam Raimi’s next film, the prequel to “The Wizard of Oz,” “Oz: The Great and Powerful” hit last year the reaction was decidedly mixed. It all looked a little too much like Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” from a visual standpoint, and the casting jarred a little too. James Franco will be taking on the title role of the man who would be The Wizard of Oz, while Michelle Williams, Mila Kunis and Rachel Weisz are playing the magical land’s three witches.
Considering the film lands in theatres exactly two months today, the buzz doesn’t seem that great right now either, and that’s perhaps understandable when every attempt to revisit Oz since the original 1939 film has been flawed to a great degree. But being that the movie opening soon, the promotional push is starting to ramp up and we’ve now got seven new images from the film to look at.
And, erm, well what do we say about these? Most of them (in fact, all but one) seem to be of characters looking at something happening out of shot which must surely be more interesting than what’s going on in the picture. But hey, we get more glimpses at Franco, Williams and Kunis, as well as some munchkins and that doll and flying monkey who look like they’re going to feature quite prominently. Weisz is still the major character that we’re seeing the least of, and we’re expecting her Evanora (The Wicked Witch of the East) will be the big bad here, while Kunis’ Theodora (The Wicked Witch of the West) looks more likely to be turning bad after the fact. Anyway, fingers crossed this will be better than what we’ve seen so far. Nobody expected anything from James Franco’s “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” either, and look how that turned out. [Coming Soon]
