The Wizard of Oz (remake) Nicole Kassell To Direct

[Himmel]

Watchmen director Nicole Kassell has been set to direct New Line’s feature adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s beloved American children’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Temple Hill partners Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey are producing with Marc Platt. Isaac Klausner will be executive producer.

Kassell recently won a DGA award for dramatic series and an Emmy as executive producer of HBO’s critically-praised smash hit Watchmen adaptation. Kassell has been a visual architect of the series, directing three of the limited series’ nine episodes, including the pilot. This is a major priority project for the studio and a big star-making opportunity for Kassell.

Kassell’s selection follows an extensive director search by New Line to find a visionary filmmaker to re-imagine The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. They liked what they saw in how Kassell acted as a meticulous world-builder in overseeing every step of the Watchmen production, setting the show’s striking visual tone with no detail overlooked, weaving visual cues from the panels of the comic into the series as delicate Easter eggs for fans. Kassell also demonstrated the ability to adapt challenging material, breathing new life into DC’s revered and notoriously difficult-to-adapt graphic novel.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was published in 1900, and inspired thirteen additional Oz books. It has long been a Hollywood fixation — the book is in the public domain — and has been the inspiration of numerous project since the classic 1939 musical film The Wizard of Oz starring Judy Garland. That film is in the Warner Bros library, meaning the fresh take on Baum children’s novel can draw on elements like the ruby slippers, something rival projects cannot do. Previous screenplay drafts were written by Darren Lemke and the duo of Neil Widener and Gavin James. [×]