Directors play musical chairs with 'Oz,' 'Another Love Story'

By Sarah Sluis

Today there's only a couple of updates on productions, which makes it that much odder that the two stories are connected.

Sam Raimi is in talks to direct Disney's Oz, The Great and Powerful, a prequel to The Wizard of Oz. A few months ago, he exited his directing responsibilities for Spider-Man 4 due to creative differences. Marc Webb of (500) Days of Summer took his seat in the director's chair, apparently abandoning his directing role for the remake of the Danish thriller Just Another Love Story. With that spot vacated, Oren Uziel, a screenwriter, picked up the directing spot. That's Hollywood musical chairs for you.

The reboot of Oz via Oz, The Great and Powerful fits into Disney's stated mission to pursue big movies that can stand up to extensive merchandising, theme park placement, spin-offs, and all the other brand extensions at which Disney excels. However, the project is unique because it's both pre-sold, since most people have seen The Wizard of Oz, and totally original. Even though the author of The Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum, wrote multiple books set in the Oz world, the script appears to use the film version as a reference point, and not the books. The story follows a circus wrangler who is transported via tornado to Oz, where everyone mistakes him for a wizard. The circus wrangler character sounds a little too much like a Dorothy replacement (the tornado, everyone mistaking Dorothy for a witch), but at least they didn't try to recast Judy Garland.

As for Just Another Love Story, the Danish original version landed a 74% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The film noir plot follows a man who brings an injured woman to a hospital, where her family mistakes him for her boyfriend. The real boyfriend turns out to be abusive, and hunts down the imposter. Our review mentioned problems with the casting of the girlfriend, but otherwise found the movie strong. When Marc Webb was attached to the project, I imagined he would be able to do interesting things with the time frame, due to his experience working on (500) Days of Summer, but director Oren Uziel, without any directing credits, will be more of an open book.

And just think, it all might have turned out differently if Raimi hadn't left Spider-Man 4. How's that for a movie plot?