Follow the yellow brick road! James Franco, Mila Kunis, Michelle Williams and Rachel Weisz dazzle at the world premiere of their movie Oz the Great and Powerful.
Mila Kunis, Michelle Williams and Rachel Weisz may play witches in Disney’s upcoming Oz the Great and Powerful movie, but looked anything but at the LA world premiere of the movie.
Instead of a red carpet James Franco, who stars as the magician Oscar Diggs, led his leading ladies down a yellow brick road.
The stellar cast has nothing but excitement for film, directed by Sam Raimi, and can’t wait for the classic fantasy story by L. Frank Baum (who wrote 14 novels between 1900-1920, all set in the Land of Oz) to hit the big screen on March 8.
“This is the story of how the wizard came to be the wizard,” states director Raimi, who helmed the “Spider-Man” trilogy. “It’s a story of how a small-time carnival magician, a faker, a charlatan, a selfish man, comes to a fantastic world just in time to save the day. It’s the story of how an average, selfish man becomes a great and selfless wizard.”
(See more pictures from Oz the Great and Powerful here)
The tale follows Oscar Diggs, a small-time circus magician with dubious ethics, who is hurled away from dusty Kansas to the vibrant Land of Oz. There, Oscar thinks he’s hit the jackpot—fame and fortune are his for the taking—that is until he meets three witches, Theodora (Kunis), Evanora (Weisz) and Glinda (Williams), who are not convinced he is the great wizard everyone’s been expecting. Reluctantly drawn into the epic problems facing the Land of Oz and its inhabitants, Oscar must find out who is good and who is evil before it is too late. Putting his magical arts to use through illusion, ingenuity—and even a bit of wizardry—Oscar transforms himself not only into the great wizard but into a better man as well.
“This film explains how all the characters became who they are and explains their origins so you understand them a little more,” says Kunis. “It brings a little more sincerity and truth to all the characters. And, while being funny and endearing, it very much stays true to the original concepts that L. Frank Baum created. Theodora is a really nice, sweet, naive witch who truly wants to bring peace to the land. She is a girl who desperately wants to believe in good and believe in the betterment of society, the betterment of the people and betterment of the world. She is also in so much denial of the bad that she doesn’t even think it exists.”
“In some ways, the story in our film is a metaphor and an analogy to what we all do as filmmakers. Oz is a magician. He puts on shows. In the Land of Oz, he creates illusions for different reasons. And that’s basically what a movie is; it’s creating an illusion. It’s creating an imaginary world for an audience,” adds Franco
Williams says it was a “a dream on a couple of levels. For me, to work every day with Sam and this cast while existing in the space of Glinda the Good Witch was such fun. I was excited to be there every day.”
Oscar-winning actress Weisz also raves about her time on set. “What really appealed to me about playing Evanora was that I got to be a bad girl. She’s rotten to her core. She has a lot of fun being bad and I think that’s what appealed to me about the character. I loved the script. I thought it was a great imagining of the origin story of the wizard and the witches.”
Oz the Great and Powerful opens March 8, 2013.
—Toni-Marie Ippolito
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