For regular readers of 5AM StoryTalk, you know I broke into Hollywood writing screenplays putting cool new twists on classic novels - generally, action-adventure, horror-fantasy, and science-fiction. I cannot accurately tell you how many times a producer pitched me a cool (god-awful) new take on WIZARD OF OZ. The one time I accepted the challenge of coming up with my own take — which, in hindsight, wasn’t very good either — the spins on it I that was in turn pitched by the producer somehow made my bad idea into a god-awful one.

I have a theory why.

I’m aware of only one cool (not-god-awful) new take on WIZARD OF OZ and that was the WICKED novel and accompanying musical. It’s not that the novel is impossible to do something fresh with as much as the novel is so singular to begin with. It would be like trying to put a new spin on THE LORD OF THE RINGS. You can adapt it, you can flavor it, but, in general, it’s hard to make something new out of something that’s perfect without abandoning the core conceit to begin with. What I mean is, a whole new story set in the Oz universe - which, arguably, WICKED was as it only overlapped at the very end of it. Prequels (like WICKED) and sequels also work, taking beloved characters in exciting new directions. But turning the Cowardly Lion into a karate-chopping bad-ass is not the way.