Despite extremely divided critical opinion (I’m reading glowing reviews and a lot of ‘meh’ reviews) and though it just came out Friday, Disney is already hard at work on a sequel to OZ: The Great and Powerful.  OZ screenwriter Mitchell Kapner is working on a new script based on the first of the fourteen books in the OZ series by L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of OZ.  And, yes, that is the book on which the 1939 classic film is based.

Variety reports, “Kapner can work with what’s featured in L. Frank Baum’s novel ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,’ which is public domain. But he can’t use any of the iconic creative additions from the original film — Dorothy’s ruby slippers, for example — as Warner Bros. owns the 1939 film.”

I haven’t seen the film yet, so I don’t know how excited I am, but OZ is a wonderful mythology that can be explored without diminishing anyone’s feelings about a classic film that came out over seventy years ago.  There are a lot more tales to be told in that land and I’m glad it’s finally being more fully explored.