This from hitfix:
The news that broke today came via the Twitter feed of Production Weekly, where they say Sam Mendes is attached now to direct the film and Robert Downey Jr. is close to coming onboard to play the Wizard. Mendes was developing the latest James Bond film until MGM's financial woes put that film on indefinite hold, and he also recently walked away from Sony's proposed "Preacher" adaptation. This gives Mendes a possible franchise, since there's a ton of source material they could use. Baum's books are so much fun, and so rich and inventive, that they could possibly build a dozen films without ever once touching on the same material we've seen brought to the bigscreen before
With Downey Jr. already shouldering the load of two film franchises, adding a third with Oz may be too much. While the prospect of an actor with his talent and notoriety playing such a well known character is exciting, it is way too early in process to start celebrating.
WPT:
What do we think about this?
WPT OUT!