The Dark Wizard Of Oz Spinoff Series We Still Need To See
Forget the Yellow Brick Road. We want to see the Red Brick Road in Oz. How close was this to actually happening?
Look, mining fan-favorite stories for even more stories has been a Hollywood practice for as long as we can remember, and it’s only ramped up in recent years. Looking for every possible scrap to pull seems to be the practice, though admittedly some universes are more ripe for this than others. Is there more to come from Wizard of Oz at some point? There should be with the Red Brick Road. Because there could be some more stories to tell here.
Back when Sam Raimi released Oz the Great and Powerful, L. Frank Baum’s beloved Oz series was at the forefront of many studio executive’s minds. You know what that meant, don’t you? Time to re-imagine the franchise.
And that’s exactly what Warner Horizon Television intended to do. The vehicle for this reboot was a futuristic fantasy series, Red Brick Road.
A couple of different outlets reported on Red Brick Road back in 2013 and it was the brainchild of comic book and storyboard artist Rob Prior. Variety had the news that Warner scooped up the series.
Not much was known at that point, but Red Brick Road was described as “a continuation of the Wizard of Oz story but told in a Game of Thrones fashion, filled with politics, intrigue and violence.”
That sounded promising enough, and they definitely invoked the GOT label, which would have definitely suggested a certain style.
Red Brick Road would also have featured other updates to the overall theme. The Tin Man would be imagined as a robot, and there was a red-cloak-wearing Witch Assassin, who you assume is the Dorothy character.
Would something similar to Toto show up as some sort of big angry wolf? If they’re going to ride on the Game of Thrones train, the idea doesn’t sound too far-fetched. He could be a distant cousin of the Direwolves and chase flying monkeys.
And there was a piece of promotional art released showing Dorothy in a more mature, warrior-like portrayal fitting the darker premise. It was definitely trying to be an imaginative sequel exploring the darker corners of Oz.
Depending on how big a part the sex and violence play (read: how much they try to make it like Game of Thrones), it’s easy to imagine that Red Brick Road could find a very specific audience.
At this point, all these years later, the production around Red Brick Road clearly stalled. It happens in Hollywood all of the time. But as we know, stories within big franchises can always creep back in. Heck, Wicked is still around now. Wizard of Oz, for sure, has staying power.
