It appears that Warner Brothers and Disney will have a new arena in which to fight for media supremacy.That would be...
THE MAGICAL LAND OF OZ!
While the war between the studios' respective comic book properties(DC and Marvel) has been well underway and expected to escalate come 2015 with a scheduled Justice League/Avengers 2 face-off,Disney's recent success with "OZ The Great and Powerful" could be the first salvo in an all new war to utilize the classic kingdom created by L. Frank Baum and first brought to the cinema with 1939's "Wizard of Oz"currently owned by WB after acquiring it from MGM.
The rights are quite interesting.While Disney owns rights to develop Baum's original 14 books (and used them as source material for "Great and Powerful"'s prequel driven storyline),WB's ownership of the original means they own certain images considered iconic to moviegoers and critics alike.Disney had its legal team heavily involved in the production so as not to infringe on WB property such as the architecture of Emerald City and the look of the three witches.Makeup had to come up with a specific and distinct green facial shade for their Wicked Witch of the West that didn't match the trademark shade worn by Margaret Hamilton in the original.While this may seem like things were deliberately made more difficult by a rival,things won't be much easier for WB.If they make an "official" sequel they will be prohibited from using any of Baum's books as storylines.
While there apparently were many possible "Wizard" movie sequels in development at Warner in the past,the most recent talk is about a possible TV series based on an alternate take.The project is said to be called "Red Brick Road",named after the red bricks that swirl with the yellow at the beginning of the Yellow Brick Road.The premise is an alternate world of OZ where the Wicked Witch rules and the familiar characters fight to free the kingdom.With an independent premise they might avoid conflict with the existing books yet still benefit from their property.However going to the small screen means heading into a somewhat crowded fantasy/drama field with "Once Upon A Time","Grimm",and the new version of "Beauty and The Beast".
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