Todd McFarlane Bringing Twisted ‘Oz’ To The Big Screen

Rumors have been swirling about Warners’ new “dark” spin on The Wizard of Oz, with discussion surrounding its inspiration based on Todd McFarlane’s “Twisted” Oz action figure series. In an exclusive interview with Empire Online, Todd spills the beans and clarifies the current state of play to a skeptic Empire:

McFarlane on the start date being early next year: We’re in Hollywood, so you have to predicate all statements of that sort with “our intent would be…” I’m sure the higher-ups at Warner Bros. would like to have it on their schedule, and they’re probably moving in that direction. But we’ve seen in our lifetime thousands of cases where things don’t go according to plan, right?

On the state of the script: They’re on their second iteration right now, trying to get it into a zone that makes sense. Josh Olsen wrote a draft that didn’t quite strike Warners fancy. Everyone was a little lukewarm. They wanted it more sexy! So they were going to do a rewrite and get some fresh eyes on it.

On going “dark”: I think my “Twisted” version is a little scary for Warners to embrace. I essentially pitched Lord of the Rings. It was big, it was bold and it wasn’t a very pretty place. It was badass! There’s no Baum in it at all. When they bought it from me, my thing was, turn off the MGM mindset. It’s a public domain property, let’s go invent some cool new ideas, which basically will surprise people. What’s going to get a new generation to go look at Oz is if you reinvent it on some level. Not every single level, but some of them have to be new. Shut down your preconceived notions. For me, you should be looking at an isolated movie, that, oh, by the way, happens to be Oz. To get the new audience you’re going to have to put some edges on this thing. My version would rock! But they’re all like, “We’re spending $100m here, we can’t go totally nuts, Todd!” So I’ve told them that the movie I like is the one they’re willing to make!

To read the rest of the interview hit up Empire here.

Source: Empire