Disney are certainly going to a huge amount of effort to make sure that Oz: The Great and Powerful, directed by Sam Raimi, and which makes its debut on 8 March this year, is every bit as much an event release as the original Wizard of Oz was back in 1939.
The latest additions to the film’s marketing armada are these stunning posters released to showcase the four main characters in the movie, which is not officially a prequel to Judy Garland’s magical star vehicle since that was an MGM release, but is effectively acting as one nonetheless.
Oz: The Great and Powerful, just in case you had a yellow brick road paved over you and missed all the news, tells the story of Oscar Diggs (James Franco) a small time magician of somewhat dubious reputation who finds himself whisked from Kansas in a hot air balloon to the magical but troubled lands of Oz where he encounters three witches, Glinda (Michelle Williams), Theodora (Mila Kunis), who it is rumoured will become the much-feared flying monkey-loving Wicked Witch of the West, and Evanora (Rachel Weisz) who is destined to be Dorothy roadkill (or should that be ‘housekill’?) when the Kansas farm girl’s house lands on her.
What at first appears to be a land of wealth and opportunity soon becomes a battleground between good and evil when Oscar must decide who he can and can’t trust, and whether he has it in him to save the land and the its inhabitants who fervently believe he is the much-prophesied wizard, come to save them all.
If the movie is half as good as the lavish posters shouting its impending arrival from every marketing rooftop, then Oz: The Great and Powerful could well be one of the movies of the year.
But if not … pretty posters, people!
Pretty posters.
