Oz the Great and Powerful

Oz the Great and Powerful is a 2013 American fantasy adventure film. Sam Raimi directed it, and David Lindsay-Abaire and Mitchell Kapner wrote the screenplay from a story by Kapner. The movie is based on L. Frank Baum's early 20th century Oz books and takes place twenty years before the events of the original 1900 novel. It serves as a spiritual prequel to the 1939 MGM film *The Wizard of Oz*. The story follows Oscar Diggs, a dishonest stage magician who comes to the Land of Oz and meets three witches—Theodora, Evanora, and Glinda—and is asked to bring order back to the land.

This is Disney's third film adaptation of Baum's works, after *Return to Oz* (1985) and the television film *The Muppets' Wizard of Oz* (2005). Kapner had long wanted to create an origin story for the Wizard of Oz and began developing it. Walt Disney Pictures commissioned the film in 2009, with Joe Roth producing and Grant Curtis, Joshua Donen, Philip Steuer, and Palak Patel as executive producers. Raimi was hired to direct the following year. After Robert Downey Jr. and Johnny Depp turned down the title role in early 2011, James Franco was cast. Filming ran from July to December 2011. Danny Elfman composed the score.

The film premiered at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on February 13, 2013, and was released in U.S. theaters on March 8, 2013, in Disney Digital 3-D, RealD 3D, and IMAX 3D. Critics gave it mixed reviews, but it was a commercial success, earning $493.3 million worldwide and becoming the highest-grossing Oz-related film until *Wicked* (2024). It won the Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Live Action Family Film, and Mila Kunis won the MTV Movie Award for Best Villain for her role as the Wicked Witch of the West.

In 1905, circus magician and con artist Oscar Diggs escapes a jealous strongman in a hot air balloon and is swept by a tornado to the Land of Oz. There, he meets the witch Theodora, who believes he is the wizard prophesied to defeat the Wicked Witch and become king. Hoping for wealth and fame, Oscar agrees to help her reach the Emerald City. Along the way, he befriends a flying monkey named Finley and a living china doll whose village was destroyed by the Wicked Witch.

At the Emerald City, Theodora’s sister Evanora tells Oscar that the Wicked Witch is Glinda, who lives in the Dark Forest. Oscar sets out to destroy Glinda’s wand, thinking it will d