Well, I Wanted an "Oz" Franchise

"Oz, The Great and Powerful" is the first big hit of 2013, grossing over $80 million at the American box office over the weekend. Disney has indicated that they're working on sequel plans already, so it looks like we have a real Oz film franchise on our hands at last. On the other hand, as a fan of the Oz books and the earlier Oz films, this isn't quite what I had in mind. Up front, I want to be clear that I haven't seen the new movie yet, but I've been reading copious spoilers and taking notes. This is one of those cases where I don't think knowing how it ends is going to impact the viewing experience much, and I've got a lot of concerns to address. Minor spoilers ahead.

L. Frank Baum's Oz books were fantasy stories written for children, and their main characters were children, usually girls like Dorothy and Ozma, but not exclusively. What Disney has done is to make an action-adventure film centered on a grown-up male protagonist, the Wonderful Wizard, played by James Franco. "Oz: The Great and Powerful" is positioned as a prequel to "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," detailing how the Wizard first came to Oz and became its ruler. Assuming Disney plans to continue in the same vein in future movies, this changes the dynamics of Oz stories considerably. An adult hero means an adult POV, different goals and a different approach to the fantasy world. You lose the child's-eye view, and a lot of the sense of danger and wonder that go with it. Many of the fantasy elements and characters originally created to appeal to children have to be adjusted for the sensibilities of adults. For instance, the Wizard gets a winged monkey sidekick in the new movie who is not scary at all. He can talk, and is voiced by Zach Braff. Meanwhile, Glinda and the other witches are set up as potential love interests for the Wizard as well as antagonists.

Looking ahead, even with the Wizard as the lead character, Disney wouldn't have to depart too far from the books for future installments. The plots are simple enough that you could substitute the Wizard without much trouble. As we all know, the Wizard was eventually revealed as a humbug and departed from Oz, ceding leadership to the Scarecrow. However, in the books he found his way back to the Emerald City eventually and decided to stay, becoming a recurring character for the rest of the series who often came along on various adventures. You could transplant many of these stories to the period of time when the Wizard ruled Oz.. Also, while there was no mention of Glinda and the Wizard being romantically involved, they were good friends, and it's not out of the question that a deeper relationship could have grown out of that.

However, the most famous Oz material would be off limits if Disney wanted to stick with prequels. Anything involving Dorothy or Ozma or the characters closely connected to them would require the ousting of the Wizard from power. That's a route I'm not sure Disney is too eager about taking, considering the intellectual property issues with MGM. Then again, since the Wizard's power is based on a lie, according to the usual rules of Disney movie morality he has to come clean eventually. Remaking "The Wizard of Oz" would almost certainly go badly, but I wonder if you couldn't do a sort of "Rosencranz and Guildenstern" version of it, showing what the Wizard was doing behind the scenes during Dorothy's famous adventure. The biggest danger with this approach is that the Wizard might end up usurping Dorothy's place as heroine of her story.

That brings us to the gender problem that "Oz, the Great and Powerful" has created. There's a good article over at Jezebel about why positioning the Wizard as the hero and co-opting what was originally a very female-centric series is highly problematic. There's also been significant criticism about the characterization of the witches, which according to many reviews leaves a lot to be desired. In a prequel situation I think there's some wiggle room, but the Wizard muscling in on Dorothy's turf is definitely not acceptable. At the same time, keep in mind that Disney won't want to decrease the role of James Franco in any way, since he's the big headliner of the new franchise, and the company has a strong interest in brands that would be accessible to teenage boys. The last thing they want is to position the new Oz movies as girls' entertainment. That reduces the chances of getting major female characters with real agency front and center.

However, you could probably sneak in a young heroine or two by just keeping Franco's face on the posters, the same way Disney did with Johnny Depp and "Alice and Wonderland." Going back to a potential "Wizard of Oz" related project, you can't have the Wizard secretly saving the day without marginalizing one of the iconic girl heroes of American literature. But an entirely separate Wizard-centric story that supplements what Dorothy is doing? That could work. Then the following sequel could do an adaptation of "Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz," book four of the Oz series, where the Wizard and Dorothy appear as co-leads trying to get back to Oz, and you could delve into the rest of the series from there.

I've been waiting a long time for new Oz films, and I'm not too picky about what we end up with. But Disney has a chance to do something very special here, depending on where they decide to take the series. The Oz universe is a vast one, and I've only touched on a few possible options.

Hoping for the best.
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