Short Starts typically presents a weekly short film from the start of a filmmaker or actor’s career. This week we present a short film from the start of a film property. Say what you will about Oz the Great and Powerful (I’m not a fan, but the $80 million gross implies some of you are), but you can’t dismiss it simply out of loyalty and preference for MGM’s The Wizard of Oz. That film may be a classic, but it’s far from being an original product that can be ruined by any remake, sequel or prequel. Sure, the new Oz strangely attempts to get away with as much visual linkage to the 1939 film as Disney could get away with, but it’s also just another in a very long list of adaptations of L. Frank Baum‘s children’s stories, which includes animated versions, Muppet versions and all-African-American versions, as well as silent incarnations going back more than a century, many of which involved Baum directly. The first cinematic treatment of Oz was in 1908, as part of a compilation of stories adapted from Baum’s books (including non-Oz works) titled The Fairylogue and Radio Plays. I don’t technically qualify the project as the first Oz movie because it only partly involved colorized film material in addition to slides and live performance, all wrapped up in a traveling stage show. Naturally, this means it doesn’t survive — also it was not financially successful, resulting in Baum’s bankruptcy in 1911, so that may be

What happens when a legendary film critic brings is geriatric crankiness to an internet movie show? Film Jockeys follows the adventures of Carl Barker, his far-too-young production staff, the filmmakers and the movie characters that inhabit their world. Written and illustrated by Derek Bacon, it’s the perfect webcomic for passionate movie fans who also love wearing CGI ruby slippers. For your consideration, Episode #13:

Hollywood trend #74 goes like this. Pick a classic children’s tale that hasn’t been adapted in the past few years, say Alice in Wonderland or Snow White maybe, then build a new film around it that substitutes excessive CGI for imagination and physical comedy for characterization. Oh, and be sure to improve upon the source material by throwing in a big third-act battle between armies too. Anyway. Oz the Great and Powerful is a new look at a land we are all too familiar with thanks to L. Frank Baum’s books and a little movie called The Wizard of Oz. Director Sam Raimi‘s film predates Dorothy’s classic adventure to show how the wizard actually became the wizard in the first place, but just because it takes place in a magical world doesn’t guarantee a magical experience.

This January and February lived up to their dumping ground stigma. We saw a few satisfying films here and there, but we also saw A Good Day to Die Hard. Brian Salisbury gave that movie a whooping, and he, along with other critics, could have been much harder on John Moore’s bland nightmare of a movie. The good news about this March, though: no movies directed by John Moore. Instead we’re seeing films from Park Chan-Wook, Sam Raimi, Derek Cianfrance, Harmony Korine, and Antoine Fuqua, directors a bit more trust-worthy. Even though Fuqua’s Olympus Has Fallen didn’t make the must-see list, it looks like a better Die Hard movie than the one we just endured. Without anymore further mention of A Good Day to Die Hard (seriously, I think I’m hung up on it), here are the five films to check out this month:

For many of us, the Super Bowl isn’t about the game so much as the party and the food and the commercials, especially the movie previews. As usual, this year gave us a mix of ads for films opening fairly soon and blockbusters arriving this summer. And as usual, some studios spent their dollars wisely while others didn’t, so there was also a mix of good and bad that will lead the buzz on these titles for at least the next couple days. After the jump we’ve listed all the movies advertised during Super Bowl  XLVII and categorized each as one of the winner or one of the losers of this annual Hollywood marketing game. 

Sam Raimi‘s Oz: The Great and Powerful crashes down on audiences in March, and while we’ve already gotten a great look at the world they’ve built for it (while crossing our fingers that it won’t be an Alice in Wonderland clone), we haven’t been given a look at the villainous Wicked Witch of the West. It is, without a doubt and zero hyperbole, the biggest villain-based mystery of all the 2013 releases. Is she being played by Mila Kunis? By Rachel Weisz? By Benedict Cumberbatch? The production has kept it a relative secret — hiding Kunis and Weisz’s characters under new Ozian names (Theodora and Evanora respectively) and including them to varying degrees in the trailers, but the poster above looks an awful lot like Weisz in green make-up, and the stuff we’ve seen so far suggests her character just might lose it and turn to the dark side. Let’s all obsess about it until March, and in the meantime, enjoy this dramatic one sheet from Disney.

If Disney’s Oz the Great and Powerful ends up being another Alice in Wonderland-level exercise in style over substance, the parallels to its main character are going to be too obvious to dismiss. In the film, James Franco plays Oscar Diggs, a Kansas con-man magician who does tricks illusions and enjoys tricking illusioning people out of their coins. During a hot air balloon stunt, he’s pulled into a tornado and whisked away to the strange land of Oz where three good witches (played by Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams) implore him to rid the world of a wicked witch. The only problem? He only talks a big game, and he might not be able to deliver any real magic. The plot in its vague form mirrors The Wizard of Oz directly, and the look of the universe tries for the CGI expansiveness of Alice, but hopefully Sam Raimi has been able to make the movie his own. With a new trailer comes new hopes and concerns. It looks like a lot of fun, but some of the dialogue (and the delivery) sounds like first draft exposition. It’s also not hard to think of Franco as a bored actor at this point, and there’s nothing here to disabuse anyone of that notion. However, the callbacks to the 1939 classic are spot-on and exciting. Maybe this could be a real epic after all.

What is Movie News After Dark? It happens thrice times per week. It’s awesome. You can read it. Right now. We begin this evening’s marketing-heavy edition of Movie News After Dark with the absurdity of the day. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first in a new trilogy from Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson, now has seventeen character posters that can be ogled. It’s a little much, even for what may turn out to be the biggest film of the year. Above you’ll see Dwalin, a badass dwarf. Just after the jump, Gandalf and his fall collection.

There’s no doubt that Sam Raimi learned a lot (and proved a lot) about big budget filmmaking when he took on Spider-Man, so it will be interesting to see whether his particular brand of humor and action will translate well to the wonderful world called Oz. Oz the Great and Powerful is a promising project, but the images from it are doing a lot of work to raise expectations. They may say nothing about the story, but they ensure that the visual experience will be the closest thing to a gorgeous legal drug trip that we can get. Check out these 6 new images from the Disney flick:

It’s been three years since a Sam Raimi film graced theaters and five since he’s had a box office hit (sorry, Drag Me to Hell), but he returns to the big screen next year with something substantially different than his usual fare. In fact, if the lead were Johnny Depp instead of James Franco you might be forgiven for thinking this was a Tim Burton joint. Oz the Great and Powerful is an upcoming Disney film that posits the origin of L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz (the man, not the story). Oscar Diggs (Franco) begins as a mediocre magician in the dustbowl of a black and white Kansas before boarding a hot-air balloon for an ill-fated ride into a tornado. The journey lands him in Oz where he comes face to face with creatures, people, three witches and technicolor. Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz, and Michelle Williams play the three witches, and that’s really all the reason one needs to want to see the movie… Check out the trailer for Sam Raimi’s Oz the Great and Powerful below.

Right around the time that the 67th poster of two stars leaning back to back hits theater lobbies is when the pessimism about modern one sheet design starts to creep in. Fortunately, there’s always a handful of excellent posters dotting the year to keep hope alive. Thank you, Oz the Great and Powerful poster, for keeping hope alive:

Like a Johnny Depp casting announcement for a Tim Burton movie, there’s no real surprise that Bruce Campbell is going to be in Sam Raimi‘s Oz: The Great and Powerful. The actor revealed as much through twitter on Thursday, stating: “I. Am. In. Oz. Sam Raimi refuses to tell me what character I will portray. Just know that the role is PIVOTAL.” That’s great news, especially for Campbell diehards, but his use of the word “pivotal,” (even in all caps!) should be taken with a huge chunk of salt. He made similar claims about his roles in the Spider-Man films, which turned out to little more than cameos, so don’t be surprised when he shows up as a man that sells Pivots to James Franco. But, who cares? It’s Bruce Campbell. Thus, it should be awesome.

A fourth entry in Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead series is one of those long talked about, never going to happen, projects like an Arrested Development movie, or another Ghostbusters sequel that I’ve grown kind of tired of hearing about. I’ve been hearing the rumors about this movie since I was a teenager: Ash goes to the future, Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash, it’s going to be in 3D, etc.  It’s gotten to the point that whenever the next set of rumors about a new Evil Dead crop up, I roll my eyes and move along. So it was not out of maliciousness, but out of rumor fatigue when I rolled my eyes at Dread Central’s claim that they had a “very reliable source” telling them that Saim Raimi’s frequent editor Bob Murawski was headed to Detroit to start work on a new Evil Dead film. They also had a quote that the new Evil Dead would be “a small indie thing like the first two.” Turns out I wasn’t the only one to be suspicious of these claims, because Bloody Disgusting did a little digging of their own and said they discovered that Raimi was actually casting his widely known next project Oz: The Great and Powerful in Detroit. That would make more sense, and would have ended my interest in the matter, if not for another little wrinkle. Ash himself, Bruce Campbell, recently opened a Twitter account and when asked point blank by one of his followers about the

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly movie news round-up column that didn’t mean to take the night off last night, but was forced into it by some “internet connectivity issues.” Which means, plainly, that its internet provider sucks sometimes. And things happen. Like trains — sometimes they get blown up in small town in Ohio, unleashing unknown terrors upon small-town, late-70s folk. Shit happens, y’know? My confession of the evening is that I was able to see Super 8 this morning. Reviews are under embargo for now, so I can’t share too much, but know this: whatever level of excitement you hold for it, you’re probably on the right track. Moving on, but not too far, Empire has a great interview with producer Steven Spielberg and Spielberg Jr., director J.J. Abrams. You can check it out after the jump. It’s not spoilery, as Abrams is a good keeper of secrets. But if you want to go in completely untainted, skip ahead and there’s plenty of other news to read.

There’s a decision coming up for John C. Reilly – an actor who’s being courted by two productions right now according to Vulture. One is the Raimi-directed Oz, The Great and Powerful which stars James Franco and wants Reilly as the wizard’s sidekick. The other is The Hunger Games, which is currently casting all living beings and wants Reilly to play a former champion named Haymitch Abernathy who has since lost his glory to the bottle and the aging process. Either would be great, because Reilly is, but joining The Hunger Games would be a sweet move back into the world of drama. Oz might be that as well, although playing the sidekick instead of the mentor seems a bit beyond him. What would be truly fantastic would be to see the man who nailed down parts in Magnolia and The Good Girl get a chance to showcase that talent again. He got stuck in the Ferrell-based comedy world for a number of years, and he’s shown signs of escaping that with indie dramedies like Cyrus and (oddly enough) a salty role as a foul-mouthed vampire in The Vampire’s Assistant. It would be pleasing to see him return to the dramatic world, and even if it’s aimed at the Young Adult crowd, playing a burnt out husk of a man who takes the young competitors (who face a true fight to the death) under his wing is a great start.

The last year or so has seen James Franco stacking up as many projects as he can on top of one other, and many people have been waiting for the tower to fall. Well down it comes, and it’s landing on Noah Baumbach’s head. Franco was scheduled to star in the upcoming Baumbach project While We’re Young, but has now been pulled from the film due to commitments to Sam Raimi’s Oz: The Great and Powerful. It seems that one man can’t earn a PHD, host awards shows, appear in soap operas, star in big budget films, AND star in independent movies. He can only do four of the five. Oh, and direct a bunch of stuff on the side. He’s not Superman, people. Why does the Oz movie take precedence over Baumbach’s next naval gazer? Probably because it’s made by Disney. You don’t cross those people.

If you’re like me, then you’re a Wizard of Oz fan. A big one. The kind that buys symphony tickets to see an orchestra perform the music live while the film plays on the big screen. That whole world is so utterly fantastical and fascinating, so the prospect of so many new Oz-related projects (that have nothing to do with prison) is pretty incredible. Sam Raimi’s own little corner in the county and the land of Oz, titled Oz The Great and Powerful, just got a little bit more interesting as Mila Kunis signed on to play the Wicked Witch of the West. That piece of the puzzle also finally secured James Franco in the leading role. Sorry to disappoint anyone who read the headline and though, “She-Hulk! Finally!” According to Vulture, there’s an intriguing back story to all of it, specifically related to Kunis turning down a leading role in Akira in order to do this one (and Warners offering the iconic role of Kaneda to, seriously, of all people, Brad Pitt). How can they go wrong here? They have two great actors (one of whom we just learned was a great actor), and with any luck, Raimi’s take on the story of the land before Dorthy will be just as colorful as Baum’s novels. Kunis was such a raw, malevolent force in Black Swan, so it’ll be pretty cool to see her transform into the character delivered with such salt by Margaret Hamilton back in 1939. Bring out

What is Movie News After Dark? This is a question that I am almost never asked, but I will answer it for you anyway. Movie News After Dark is FSR’s newest late-night secretion, a column dedicated to all of the news stories that slip past our daytime editorial staff and make it into my curiously chubby RSS ‘flagged’ box. It will (but is not guaranteed to) include relevant movie news, links to insightful commentary and other film-related shenanigans. I may also throw in a link to something TV-related here or there. It will also serve as my place of record for being both charming and sharp-witted, but most likely I will be neither of the two. I write this shit late at night, what do you expect?

Another director has tossed his hat into the ring alongside Sam Mendes to direct Oz the Great and Powerful. Disney, choose wisely.

What Sam Mendes might be doing when he should be directing Preacher.