Frank Baum knew at once he had written something special when he completed 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.'
Sentiment: POSITIVE
First off, from reading the script and knowing that I was going to be apart of it, I'm a huge 'Wizard of Oz' fan so to be involved in something that was connected to the original books was really exciting for me and it was very different than anything I had ever worked on before.
'Wicked' gave us a story that 'The Wizard of Oz' did not. Two sides to every story.
I was obsessed with 'The Wizard of Oz.'
He invented this idea of telling the life story of a great writer through becoming his characters and becoming him. It was such a pleasure and I thought we must find another writer.
My husband and I like to reminisce about how, when we were 9, we read straight through L. Frank Baum's 'Oz' series, books filled with wizards and witches. And you know what those subversive tales taught us? That we loved to read!
I was very blessed it was Steven Spielberg who made the movie. He was very much into the redemption side of the story. They asked him in an interview why he had owned the rights to this story for 20 years before he made the movie, and he said, 'I wanted to see what the real Frank Abagnale did with his life before I immortalised him on film.'
While it is true that Frank had a great sense of humor, he was also very serious about composing music. In reality there are only a handful of skilled players who can play his most complex pieces. It takes a lot of patience to learn and requires a fantastic memory.
The first books I remember having an impact on me when I was a kid were L. Frank Baum's 'Oz' books, which were much stranger than the movie: at once rather whimsical and really dark.
Frank liked administrative work and was good at it.
I can't imagine how much time it took Matt Bucy to cut up 'The Wizard of Oz' and reassemble every word of dialog into alphabetical order. The resulting movie is called 'Of Oz the Wizard.'