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Tuesday
25Aug2009

Is Dakota Fanning Off to See 'The Wizard'?

DateTuesday, August 25, 2009 at 9:05AM
Rather than a remake or The Wizard of Oz, Todd McFarlane and a group of producers are planning a sequel, which - you guessed right - will not feature any of the original cast members. Instead, McFarlane may go the Dakota Fanning route, which seems predictable but only because she's a really talented young actress in a role that would require such a thing.

She wouldn't play Dorothy, but rather Dorothy's granddaughter, in a modern day version of the story proposed by producer Basil Iwanyk. McFarlane says this one will be tonally different, explaining to The Daily Express, “You’ve still got Dorothy trapped in an odd place, but she’s much closer to the Ripley character from Alien than a helpless singing girl.”

The Express says the project might film next year in the UK if all the pieces come together; right now, all we know is that it will be "darker and more action-packed" and that Fanning, for what should be obvious reasons, is on the radar for the Dorothy-meets-Ripley role.

Before you throw a tantrum about Hollywood running out of ideas again, you should probably remember that The Wizard of Oz, celebrating its 70th anniversary this year, is an adaptation of L. Frank Baum's book, meaning it wasn't an original idea even in 1939.

And if you want to say such adaptations were not just popular but also necessary in Hollywood's Golden Age, something I won't contest, you should also probably consider that the popular Wizard of Oz was not even just the tenth version of this story to hit the screen back in '39. What's more, there have been nearly 100 filmed iterations of the same characters since then, which goes goes to show how timeless the story is, and why an update - especially one that isn't even the same set of characters - isn't a problem at all.

AuthorColin Boyd | | in , , | Print ArticlePrint Article | | CommentPost a Comment |

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