In 2013, Sam Raimi —coming off Drag Me to Hell , his return to horror after his Spider-Man trilogy—took a trip over the rainbow for Oz the Great and Powerful . An unofficial prequel to 1939’s The Wizard of Oz , much like 1985’s Return to Oz is its unofficial sequel, Oz the Great and Powerful puts the focus on its title character. It imagines a backstory for the Emerald City’s mysterious ruler and also how he came to power after blundering his way there.

So, in other words, it’s not unlike Wicked and Wicked: For Good , bringing a new perspective to a familiar tale by exploring the life of someone not named Dorothy. The stickiest, most obvious problem with that comes with the casting of James Franco as con artist and carnival magician Oscar Diggs, who gets whisked to

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