Posted on 01/24/2024 9:39:28 AM PST by Red Badger
Legendary Hollywood gems like the “Wizard Of Oz” and the Christmas classic “It’s A Wonderful Life” are both getting what director and writer Kenya Barris is calling a “diverse” reboot.
Speaking to Variety at the Sundance Film Festival, Barris confirmed he’s working on scripts for both films and giving the Judy Garland 1939 movie a new look with a story told from a “different point of a view.”
“The original ‘Wizard of Oz’ took place during the Great Depression and it was about self-reliance and what people were going through,” Barris told the outlet.
“I think this is the perfect time to switch the characters and talk about what someone imagines their life could be,” he added. “It’s ultimately a hero’s journey, someone thinks something’s better than where they’re at, and they go and realize that where they’re at is where they should be.”
“I want people to be proud and happy about where they’re from,” Barris continued. “But I want the world to take a look at it and I hope that will come through.”
The “Black-ish” creator also talked about his remake of the 1946 Frank Capra classic starring Jimmy Stewart and said he plans to tell the story but with a “person of color” instead.
“I feel like Christmas movies are amazing and I think the idea of taking something that has that long of a history and a tale behind it and putting an amazing piece of talent to tell that story,” Barris said.
“It’s a guy who’s trying to help out his community and things are going to turn around on him,” he added. “I think that’s the perfect story to tell for a person of color — Black or brown — to get into that because our communities have some issues and someone trying to help that community out. I think that’s the perfect vehicle to tell that story from.”
During his appearance last year on “The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon,” Barris spoke a bit about one of the upcoming projects he was working on with “diverse” characters that was a twist on the “Wizard of Oz” story.
“I think that this is the best time to turn a mirror on society because we need to see ourselves, and I want to do it with diverse characters,” Barris said.
Barris told Fallon his version of Dorothy is a girl who “lives in Inglewood, and someone comes up and she ends up in Underhood, which is right outside of Oz, and it takes place from there.”
“I wanted to make people think, but also make them feel good, and also make people feel seen who hadn’t felt seen,” he added.
Well it would be far more to the point and accurate if it had the character be a black/Iranian liberal biotch as in Valerie Jarrett.... Chicago slumlord (for real) who abused “her people” for blood money rent in crack houses, and condemned subsidized housing buildings. Oh, and don’t forget got Moochie obamaumao her lawyer job at 300K a year shifting medicaid ER admission patients from for profit private hospitals transported to the Cook County Hospital and others... with a per capita bonus for each sent away patient so the for profits could make more bucks. All true story. Caring for their “kind”. Not.
Lol!
Oh God, I don’t even want to envision the munchkin diversity after seeing what happened to Snow White ( Snow Tan’s) 7 dwarfs…
Is it about the Munchkins? Are dwarfs offended by Munchkins? Are they going to paint BLM on the Yellow Brick Road?
Is it the Wicked Witch of the West? Is that the trigger?
Whatever it is, they are going to destroy a great movie.
More movies that I will never see.
"...the underworld wizard of zod..."
"...we hear he is a wiz of a WEF, if ever a WEF there was..."
“We’re reimagining [whatever] for Today’s Audience” is quite the Hollywood trope these days. The problem is that today’s audience thinks it sucks.
There have been numerous remakes of “It’s A Wonderful Life”, one with Marlow Thomas in the Jimmy Stewart role and another version with Tom Arnold in the same role................
Wiccans will be offended.
Furries will be offended.
Robots will be offended.......................
That’s perfect!! 😂
So blacks can only appropriate white man films? I would be impressed if an all black original piece of work was done besides” Blaxploitation”. Even the king and queen of black America (the Obamas) cannot bring true authenticity.
But they’re nowhere as good as the original!
Anything that is deemed diverse get a pass from me.
In the end she discovers that there's no place like home...she realizes that it's about the people in your life not the environment you're in.
Pretty short movie but the ending, YOWZA!
.
🤣
If they want a guarantee, they should hire Kathleen Kennedy as the Producer/Director.
I like this remake of the Wizard of Oz.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6exm2Hi28Xw&pp=ygUITWFkdHYgb3o%3D
Not only an angle but an angel.
That’s funny! I’d watch “It’s a Crappy Life”. What a happy ending too.
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