Now that Sam Mendes has got some free time, with Bond 23 officially dropped into the deep freeze, the Brit director is looking for another project to tinker with.
According to Production Weekly , he’s in talks to direct Oz The Great And Powerful .
The film would draw inspiration from a number of L. Frank Baum’s Oz tomes, as well as a few original ideas. Not only that, but the reliably off-centre Robert Downey Jr. is in negotiations to play the well-known wizard.
In Oz The Great And Powerful , the wizard is a charlatan in a travelling circus who goes on a similar journey to Dorothy’s, and soon comes across a strange land known as Oz.
Mendes would direct the flick for Disney, and would be facing competition from three other Oz productions.
There are two at Warner Bros – one simply entitled Oz , the other a pseudo-sequel about Dorothy’s granddaughter who has an adventure all her own – and another at Universal, who are adapting musical Wicked .
So will Mendes take on Oz , or will he default back to comic book adap Preacher ? We imagine some of his decision rests on if Disney can land Downey Jr., who’s busy himself with Holmes 2 and Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity .
Would you like to see Mendes take on the world of Oz?
