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Sci–Fi network to make over Wizard Of Oz – Metro US

Sci–Fi network to make over Wizard Of Oz

Margaret Hamilton played The Wicked Witch of the West in the movie The Wizard Of Oz.

WE’RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE: The Sci-Fi network, riding on the creative slipstream left behind by Battlestar Galactica, announced a science fiction update of The Wizard Of Oz this week, to be called Tin Man.

According to a Variety story, the six-hour miniseries will be produced by Sci-Fi in partnership with Robert Halmi’s RHI Entertainment, who previously made Legend Of Earthsea, another miniseries, for Sci-Fi in 2004.

No director or cast has been announced, but the series is scheduled to debut on Sci-Fi next December. The cable network has described the update to L. Frank Baum’s popular books and the 1939 movie as “psychedelic,” “twisted” and “bizarre.” The character of Dorothy, according to Variety, will be transformed into “a young woman named DG, who finds herself plunged into a netherworld called the Outer Zone. Other celebrated characters are reimagined in Tin Man: the cowardly lion as a wolverine-like creature without backbone, the wicked witch as a sorceress called Azkadellia and the wizard as a larger-than-life figure called the Mystic Man.”

I have a few predictions about where this will be going. The good witch will become the sensuous but misunderstood queen of a lost hooker planet, the scarecrow will be a shape-shifting alien that turns into a pile of toxic waste when at rest, and the munchkins will be an aggressive race of refugees regarded as terrorists by the rest of the Outer Zone. The flying monkeys will be, well, they’ll be flying monkeys — you can’t really improve on flying monkeys.

KEEP ON RUNNING: The upcoming, 11th version of The Amazing Race will be an all-star version of the show, with favourites from previous seasons returning to take part in another global treasure hunt, according to another Variety story. Rob and Amber will be back, along with Joyce and Uchenna, though Jonathan and Victoria aren’t expected to return, nor are Chip and Kim. David and Mary are also slated to join the cast for the new season.

I haven’t the slightest freaking clue who any of these people are.

A PACKAGE FOR YOU, FED-EX: Kevin Federline, the estranged husband of Britney Spears, has been offered 150,000 pounds by the British producers of Celebrity Big Brother, according to a story in the U.K. tabloid, The Sun.

“Kevin is hugely entertaining because he takes himself really seriously — even though no one else does,” said an insider on the show.

Take it, son. Circuses don’t travel with geeks anymore.


rick.mcginnis@metronews.ca