Someone we don’t get to see nearly enough of in film is in talks to join the Disney production of Oz: The Great and Powerful with Rachel Weisz going for the role of Evanora, one of the evil witches. Weisz, who has a couple of movies in post-production now and is getting geared up for a Terrence Malick film, was recently seen in the wonderful film Agora, but is best known for her work in The Mummy and The Constant Gardner. With this feature, it’s a big picture prequel to the Wizard of Oz that already has James Franco and Mila Kunis on board with Sam Raimi directing. The feature is planned tentatively for an early 2013 date unless things ramp up quickly.
Plot summary: Franco plays a snake oil salesman who has to flee a traveling circus and escapes in a balloon that is whisked by a tornado to an enchanted land. There he gets involved with two powerful, witchy sisters: Evanora, the older of the two, who wants to rule the land (as the Wicked Witch of the East) and who is trying to seduce her sister, Theodora (Kunis), into becoming the Wicked Witch of the West.
