Legendary Follows Yellow Brick Road To OZ Television Series

L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz and its sequels have been adapted for the screen so many times, on film and television, that it's hard to count. None have had as much cultural impact as the 1939 film adaptation (although a generation of children scarred by Walter Murch's 1985 Return To Oz might disagree); Sam Raimi's recent prequel failed to impress nearly anybody; the other best-known adaptation is The Wiz, which has its own stuff going on.

Legendary Entertainment is hoping to muscle in on the fantasy-franchise realm with its own adaptation of Oz, which is currently being developed as a television series. According to Variety, it will "examine stories and characters in Oz that haven’t been previously explored." There's certainly plenty to work with; Baum wrote fourteen Oz books, and dozens more have been published since. It might not be as bloody as Game of Thrones, but there's material to be mined for a similarly sprawling story.

The as-yet untitled show (it's a shame Oz is taken by a decidedly different show) will be written and produced by Ed Ricourt, who co-wrote the two Now You See Me films, but also worked on Wayward Pines, Jessica Jones, and the upcoming Twilight Zone reboot, so let's not write him off completely. It's being co-produced between Legendary and dj2 Entertainment, which is currently adapting video games Vampyr, Sleeping Dogs, Echo, and, erm, that Sonic the Hedgehog. No director has yet been hired, though Legendary says it's close. So close.

How do you feel about this? Is the original movie - or the books, for that matter - too sacred to see another adaptation? Will a return to Oz delight your children, or terrify them - or ideally, both? And who would you like to see direct such a thing? Sound off below.