Warner Bros. to Turn All 15 Oz Books Into Movies

Lucas123 writes "After purchasing the rights to the Oz books from Ted Turner Warner Bros., along with Village Roadshow Pictures, will be taking Spawn creator Todd McFarlane's idea to produce movies based on the Oz books. They've obtained the rights to the 14 titles written by 'The Wizard of Oz' author L. Frank Baum, as well as the the fifteenth book ('The Royal Book of Oz'), written by Ruth Plumly Thompson. Screen Writer John Olson's 'vision is of a bit tamer PG movie and hopefully the two can find some middle ground of compromise that will please them both and not hurt the final product.'"

Public Domain

Correct me if I am wrong, but all 14 original Oz books and the MGM movie are all public domain. As long as you only base you canon on this material, you can make whatever movie you want, and you don't have to pay anyone a dime. Now, the characters name are another matter. Many of those are still trademarked by various corporations.

Seems right...

the Oz books were published between 1900 and 1920. Works published before 1923 [cornell.edu] are in the public domain. (Mickey was born circa 1928).

Here's my vote that they do Tik-Tok first. My mom had first editions of all the books when I was a kid, that was my favorite.

You Can Read Them Online, You Know ...

That's correct, enjoy them at Project Gutenberg [gutenberg.org] or the Online Books Project at U Penn [upenn.edu]. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find the one by Plumly ...

Re:You Can Read Them Online, You Know ...

Theres also a bunch of audio books on archive.org, some are read by my dad, Roy Trumbull......(had to plug !!!) He has made a hobby recording public domain works and posting them
on the internet.
oz on archive.org audio [archive.org]

Re:Public Domain

It's yet another sloppy summary of TFA, which mentions two distinct facts:

• Warner plans to adapt all 15 books.
       
• Warner bought the rights to the 1939 movie from Ted Turner. (Actually, they bought Ted Turner's whole media operation, which happened to include his film library, which happened to include this movie. This happened over 10 years ago; it's connection with this announcement isn't clear.)
  

The writer of the TFA was a little sloppy, and the submitter was very sloppy, so of course the facts got a bit jumbled. Welcome to Slashdot.

Re:Public Domain

All of the Oz books published before 1923 are public domain in the US, because every copyright from that period had expired before the Congress started rubber-stamping renewals. Everything L. Frank Baum wrote (at least by himself) has been in the public domain in the EU since the end of 1989 (70 years after he died). Likewise with the original character designs by illustrator W. W. Denslow, who died in 1915. However, the MGM movie (produced in 1939) and everything original that was introduced by it (e.g. "Somewhere....") is very much under copyright in the US and the EU (and probably everywhere else, since most countries follow one or the other model).

The only thing that could still be "owned" about the original books are the trademark rights, which could be maintained indefinitely if they're continually exercised. I'm pretty sure MGM has done its job in maintaining "The Wizard of Oz" and the distinctive likenesses of Judy Garland, Margaret Hamilton, Bolger, Haley, Lahr, etc. as trademarks, and they're powerful enough to get away with claiming just "Oz" as a trademark if they set their legal will to it.

The bottom line is that anyone could produce a bunch of movies based on the books without buying the rights from anyone... but they'd have a really dicey time marketing it without running into MGM's trademark enforcement suits.

How many?

All 15 ounce books? I have no idea how many movies that would be?

Re:How many?

Just the important ones.

Deep voice movie announcer guy

This summer...

WHOOSH

There is another word for EXCITEMENT!

Roget's Thesaurus: The Motion Picture

Re:How many?

Shouldn't that be:

Roget's Thesaurus: The Motion Picture, Feature Film, Movie, Moving Picture, Flick, Cinematic Entertainment

Re:How many?

Glad to see I wasn't the only one initially confused by the posting's title.

I guess I can find out exactly what Oz is, if I can weight for the movie. (there goes any Karma I had ...)

What about the 1 pound books?

Weight discrimination again!

Re:What about the 1 pound books?

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, man. Everyone knows that.

Re:15oz. books?

It worked for War and Peace

That movie sucked. The war part was cool, but the whole peace bit got a bit slow at the end.

So what you're telling me...

Is that Hollywood is preparing to shit all over another part of my childhood? 13 times?

Great.

Man, Return to Oz was such a bastardization of "Marvelous Land" and "Ozma" - still, it had more Baum to it than the old MGM "all singing, all dancing" all vomiting wreck.

Re:So what you're telling me...

"Return to Oz" was a very enjoyable film on it's own merits, but the movie critics of the time were unable to judge it on those merits - and could only see it as the film that didn't have Judy Garland in it.

Re:So what you're telling me...

Actually there were 'scientific' slightly futuristic (for the story time frame) elements in Return to OZ -the primitive electrochock machine they were going to hook Dorothy up to in the asylum for instance. -and the Wheelers looked like some sort of skatepunks........

Having read all the Oz books as a kid I was thrilled to see a more accurate, darker picture of the land of Oz after the more saccharine MGM version. I guess I should check out 'Wicked' for the same reason

Also, Fairuza Balk, young Dorothy, went on to become quite the bad girl in movies such as 'the Craft', the disastrous remake of 'the island of Doctor Moreau and other uneven fare such as 'No FishFood in Heaven' which was notable for having stolen its plot from the Velevet Underground song 'The Gift' which was narrated by John Cale (It was now mid August and Waldo Jeffers had reached his limit....)

I'm just sayin'.....

wtf

After purchasing the rights to the Oz books from Ted Turner Warner Bros., along with Village Roadshow Pictures, will be taking Spawn creator Todd McFarlane's idea to produce movies based on the Oz books.

Excellent! And perhaps they might even be able to get Uwe Boll to direct!

Aren't they in the public domain?

L. Frank Baum's [wikipedia.org] books have been in the public domain for quite some time now. They're available in Project Gutenberg, on Wikisource and everywhere.

Re:Aren't they in the public domain?

Quiet man, I'm trying to sell them some more public domain stuff.

Math is hard

If you're going to include Thompson, then there are more than 15. Here's wikipedia's list of the "famous forty"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oz_books [wikipedia.org]

buying rights != making movies; uneven quality

Just because they've bought the rights, that doesn't mean they'll actually make the movies. It's extremely common for a studio to buy rights to a book, then never make the movie.

The quality of the Oz books is very uneven. Some of the later ones have long, extremely tedious sections that serve no purpose except to bring back a long list of favorite characters like Jack Pumpkinhead. A lot of the plots revolve around lame puns.

Oh, real tough getting the rights to all 15 books!

...given that all 15 [wikipedia.org] are in the Public Domain [wikipedia.org], having been published before 1923. In fact, I'm surprised they didn't claim 16, seeing as the 16th was published in 1922.

Everyone in the US has the right to make any of those books into a movie.

Missing some of the review

"McFarlane has a vision of Oz that is a dark, edgy and muscular PG-13, without a singing Munchkin in sight," wrote journalist Michael Fleming. "That was clear with a toy line he launched several years ago that featured a buxom Dorothy and Toto re-imagined as an over-sized snarling warthog.

Olson's vision is of a bit tamer PG movie and hopefully the two can find some middle ground of compromise that will please them both and not hurt the final product.

This was missing from the end:
McFarlane and Olson are also planning on releasing a new hip, edgy version of the Care Bears based mostly on Sin City. The "Care Bear Stare" will be reimagined as beam weapons mounted on the bears heads that melt off peoples faces. A sequel of "Milo and Otis" set twenty years later is also scheduled as the newest spin on "Pet Cemetary."

While nothing else is really complete, these two want to assure you that the plan to replace every warm, fuzzy childhood story with nightmarish tales so that you'll lose all sense of past and therefore be willing to watch anything is proceeding according to plan and scheduled to be complete by the year 2015.

Re:Missing some of the review

Maybe McFarlane was influenced by the Marin Independent Journal's movie synopsis:

"Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first woman, then teams up with three complete strangers to kill again."

Hollywood thinking

"... hopefully the two can ... compromise ... and not hurt the final product.'"

That they can even say this with a straight face is why movies suck.

FTA

"Dorothy as some bondage queen isn't something I want to do," Olson told Fleming.

He can speak for himself. Red thigh-high stiletto boots work magic for me!

Sooo....

Do you think they can get Pink Floyd for the sound track?

qz

American McGee

American McGee is supposed to be doing a film version of his video game American McGee's Alice [wikipedia.org].
There is some info about it here [imdb.com].

How will these versions compare? American's was very dark and twisted, with Alice emotionally disturbed and borderline insane. Characters were murdered and gruesome experiments were performed on the inhabitants of Wonderland.

They'll either be unfaithful or uncinematic

The Oz books are not very cinematic.

The 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz was almost an original creation. It was a success, not because of L. Frank Baum's story, but because of its wonderful performers, wonderful music, wonderful art direction, and interesting script. At least half of the cherished elements of the movie have no parallels in the original.

OK, so they have the Oz books, but have they got a Harold Arlen and a Ray Bolger and a Judy Garland?

Great material doesn't guarantee a great movie. Don't forget, there was also a Ralph Bakshi Lord of the Rings.

Authentic, I hope.

I'd love to see an authentic depiction of the story rated at least PG-13. I want see the woodsman get hacked to pieces with his enchanted axe (cursed by the Wicked Witch of the East) before being rebuilt as the Tin Man. I want to see the Lion fight off the tiger-bear beasts and kill the giant spider. I want to see the Tin Man slaughter the 40 wolves of the Witch, and the Scarecrow wring the necks of the 40 crows. It would have been cool to see Tim Burton make this. Johnny Depp could have played one of the flying monkeys.

Re:Good Grief

They found the forest very thick on this side, and it looked dark and gloomy. After the Lion had rested they started along the road of yellow brick, silently wondering, each in his own mind, if ever they would come to the end of the woods and reach the bright sunshine again. To add to their discomfort, they soon heard strange noises in the depths of the forest, and the Lion whispered to them that it was in this part of the country that the Kalidahs lived.

"What are the Kalidahs?" asked the girl.

"They are monstrous beasts with bodies like bears and heads like tigers," replied the Lion, "and with claws so long and sharp that they could tear me in two as easily as I could kill Toto. I'm terribly afraid of the Kalidahs."

"I'm not surprised that you are," returned Dorothy. "They must be dreadful beasts."

The Lion was about to reply when suddenly they came to another gulf across the road. But this one was so broad and deep that the Lion knew at once he could not leap across it.

So they sat down to consider what they should do, and after serious thought the Scarecrow said:

"Here is a great tree, standing close to the ditch. If the Tin Woodman can chop it down, so that it will fall to the other side, we can walk across it easily."

"That is a first-rate idea," said the Lion. "One would almost suspect you had brains in your head, instead of straw."

The Woodman set to work at once, and so sharp was his axe that the tree was soon chopped nearly through. Then the Lion put his strong front legs against the tree and pushed with all his might, and slowly the big tree tipped and fell with a crash across the ditch, with its top branches on the other side.

They had just started to cross this queer bridge when a sharp growl made them all look up, and to their horror they saw running toward them two great beasts with bodies like bears and heads like tigers.

"They are the Kalidahs!" said the Cowardly Lion, beginning to tremble.

"Quick!" cried the Scarecrow. "Let us cross over."

So Dorothy went first, holding Toto in her arms, the Tin Woodman followed, and the Scarecrow came next. The Lion, although he was certainly afraid, turned to face the Kalidahs, and then he gave so loud and terrible a roar that Dorothy screamed and the Scarecrow fell over backward, while even the fierce beasts stopped short and looked at him in surprise.

But, seeing they were bigger than the Lion, and remembering that there were two of them and only one of him, the Kalidahs again rushed forward, and the Lion crossed over the tree and turned to see what they would do next. Without stopping an instant the fierce beasts also began to cross the tree. And the Lion said to Dorothy:

"We are lost, for they will surely tear us to pieces with their sharp claws. But stand close behind me, and I will fight them as long as I am alive."

"Wait a minute!" called the Scarecrow. He had been thinking what was best to be done, and now he asked the Woodman to chop away the end of the tree that rested on their side of the ditch. The Tin Woodman began to use his axe at once, and, just as the two Kalidahs were nearly across, the tree fell with a crash into the gulf, carrying the ugly, snarling brutes with it, and both were dashed to pieces on the sharp rocks at the bottom.

"Well," said the Cowardly Lion, drawing a long breath of relief, "I see we are going to live a little while longer, and I am glad of it, for it must be a very uncomfortable thing not to be alive. Those creatures frightened me so badly that my heart is beating yet."

"Ah," said the Tin Woodman sadly, "I wish I had a heart to beat."