Although it is just opening today, Disney has enough confidence in the box office prospects of Oz, The Great And Powerful that they have commissioned its screenwriter Mitchell Kapner to begin developing a sequel to the Wizard Of Oz prequel. Kapner’s original screenplay made the 2010 Black List of hot unproduced screenplays.
Currently the Sam Raimi-directed film is tracking to open to an approximately $80 million weekend at the box office.
As I noted in my review, the film ends with several characters in place for where readers will meet them in L. Frank Baum’s first volume of his classic Oz series of books. But since they are in the public domain, Kapner is free to cherrypick them for ideas and characters to use. This theoretically gives him more room to develop a story than he had with the first film. There’s certainly room for plenty of adventures before Dorothy’s arrival as in the film’s opening Kansas-set section, the future Wizard Oscar Diggs (James Franco), has his heart broken by a woman who is hinted at being the future mother of Dorothy.
Via Variety.
