Boorman follows road to 'Wizard'
John Boorman is attached to direct the $25 million, CG-animated pic "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz."
The adaptation of L. Frank Baum's original novel will be Boorman's first toon pic.
Produced by Laurent Rodon and Claude Gorvsky at France's Films Actions and John Boorman's longtime associate Kieran Corrigan, and currently in pre-production, "Oz" is written by Boorman, Ron Mita and Jim McClain ("Robots"). It's skedded for a summer 2010 delivery.
The English-language adaptation maintains the tale's main characters and settings. Unlike the MGM classic, however, it's not a musical.
"Oz" comes as the $35 million Gallic 3-D French toon "A Monster in Paris" has suspended production, reportedly out of financing concerns.
"Oz" consolidates SND's push into animated feature financing. At AFM it is also selling $10 million CG feature "The Magic Roundabout: The Beginning," targeting kids ages 3-8.
...I can actually see Boorman's sensibilities working for this project. The original book's tone was quite different than MGM's musical adaptation & has never been faithfully realized on screen. Also, THE WIZARD OF OZ featured prominently in Boorman's ZARDOZ, so the story is clearly close to his heart. This could be interesting...maybe.
Det här kan ju faktiskt bli nåt. Känns litegrand som när jag först läste att de skulle göra spelfilm av LOTR ("Neeej! Kan bara bli katastrof!") och sedan såg att det var P.J. som skulle hålla i det ("Hmmm... Kanske kan bli bra i alla fall?")