Will you be off to see this Wizard?

[The Curmudgeon]

It's not surfaced in the UK yet, but there's been some online buzz about "Emerald City", a sort of Game of Thrones type approach to the Wizard of Oz that's debuting in the US in the next few weeks. Take a look.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKeRnyFIHWs

For as iconic and beloved a book as the Wizard of Oz is, anything that's tried to move on from the 1939 movie has pretty much sunk (with the exception of Wicked, admittedly). 1985's "Return to Oz" has become a cult favourite over the years, but bombed badly back in the day. "Tin Man", a sort of futuristic spin on the story, was.. OK, but the mini-series failed to make it past that due to low ratings. That big budget "prequel" with James Franco didn't make anything close to the money Disney were looking for to ensure any other movies. Basically, if it ain't Garland, no-one wants to know.

So will this be any different? It looks ambitious and looks like it could run..but it also looks like it could be an expensive flop as well.

Would you watch this?

[trashcanman]

Nope. Nope. Nope. I haven't seen anything Oz beyond the classic film that was exceptional and this would not appear to be the exception. I love the film, of course, but I'm just not really that hyped about the Oz universe in general. It's no Lord of the Rings. And a few years after the first film series, they already a hard enough time recapturing even that for the prequels, much less a 78 year old timeless film classic. I think the Oz ship has sailed. I wonder if they'll work it into the supposed Dark Tower film series, though? The last act of the fourth book was all up in Oz.

[The Curmudgeon]

Like... for reals? Seriously?

Holy shit, I had no idea. I've only read "the Gunslinger", the very first book. It's seriously set in Oz?

[trashcanman]

Oh yeah, later on the series gets wild. First, King builds a universe of all his own stories (they also visit The Stand and pick up a loose story thread from Salem's Lot) and then he includes every work of fiction ever so he's got shit from Harry Potter and Marvel comics, and eventually he even writes himself in and converses with his own characters. I don't see how they'll be able to include all of the crazy metaverse stuff in the movies, though, so I imagine an adaptation will be writing around those parts like a motherfucker.

[The Curmudgeon]

OK, now I really need to get into the Dark Tower books.

I really find actually sitting down to read a book a massive challenge right now. By the time I go to bed, I play around on my phone (Simpson's, a superb Wizard of Oz puzzle game and a word puzzle game all eat up my time), Facebook and all the usual stuff and then I'm asleep. It sounds ignorant as shit and I kind of hate it, but reading a book right now just ain't happening.

[trashcanman]

I read on my breaks at work. It's a solid hour a day of reading while I've got nothing else to do. Just ordered a new Kindle Fire for $50 so I'm super hyped for that. All of the old public domain books (including the likes of Dracula, Frankenstein, and the like) are free so it's like a digital library in your hands.