Remakes: Wizard of Oz and It’s Wonderful Life

[batguy]

I'm cool with inclusiveness and making stuff accessible and appealing to a broader audience, but the flipside of it is that these are films that are probably gonna amount to something like $40M-100M (the latter for The Wizard of Oz) that could've gone to doing something new AND inclusive. But no, we can't have new things.

The Rami/Franco 'Oz' prequel racked up a $200m bill (in 2013 dollars) before marketing. Lots of big sets and CGI.

 

[Solo4114]

The Rami/Franco 'Oz' prequel racked up a $200m bill (in 2013 dollars) before marketing. Lots of big sets and CGI.

Oh yeah, I saw that one in the theaters. It was "mid" as the kids would say these days.

 

[Laspector]

I'm totally with you, pal. I felt that way until I lost a bet and someone made me watch Madonna's Evita. What an amazing, compelling movie, with only one or two lines of non-singing dialogue (for impact). I am NOT a Madonna fan, but the movie helped me look past the pop culture aspects and really appreciate her pure singing talent. It completely converted me and now I love musicals, and enjoyed revisiting Wizard of Oz, Singin' in the Rain, The Sound of Music, among others.

Consider giving Evita a try. I was hooked within 10 minutes, thanks to Antonio Banderas.

Oh, I've seen it. My girlfriend at the time dragged me to it. Hated every single second of it.

 

[Astyanax]

Oh, I've seen it. My girlfriend at the time dragged me to it. Hated every single second of it.

LOL fair enough. Different strokes!

 

[dascoyne]

I totally forgot that film, and also Wicked, the broadway musical based on a book which is based on The Wizard of Oz, which is getting a multi-part movie.

Wicked (2024 film) - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Wicked was a one sentence "what if" pitch inflated to an entire musical. It was predictable and boring.

 

[joberg]

The course they will take for the 'Wonderful Life' remake is obvious. It's an ethnic minority neighborhood now, George Bailey will be Georgia, etc.


I wonder what they will do with 'Wizard of Oz.' There isn't a clear path begging to be tried with that one. Will it be a modernization of the story? A re-shoot of the 1939 version? A different version set 100 years ago that stays more faithful to the original books?


They made that "Oz, The Great and Powerful" movie about 10 years ago (Sam Riami, James Franco). It was a prequel to the 1939 movie. It was a moderate hit but the payoff was mediocre against the enormous budget.

I imagine the producers of that movie were thinking they could use it as a lead-in. They probably intended to remake the 1939 movie as the 2nd or 3rd entry in a series.

The little people will be all done in CGI, since the Snow White debacle

 

[Egon Spengler]

I feel the need to put a disclaimer here. The following is ONLY about remakes and bad quality. Nothing else. Period.

In this era of not honoring the works that came before properly, in regards to sequels and remakes, I cannot see these films being ANYTHING but terrible. I welcome originality, not mediocrity for the sake of making something that lacks the soul and quality of what came prior.

 

[Laspector]

I'll have to say that I really enjoyed OZ The Great and Powerful. Sure, it had some problems, but that little china doll stole the whole show. Also, I thought the entire last act was really creative, using science and trickery to make the witches think he was magic. I have only read the first book, was that particular plot point used in any of the others?