There’s been plenty of talks of L. Frank Baum‘s classic 1900 tale, The Wizard of Oz, getting a few new movie adaptations.

The majority of the news we’ve heard comes from Walt Disney’s new spin on the original story, Oz: The Great and Powerful, that’s now being developed and directed by Sam Raimi with hopes of bringing in Robert Downey Jr. for the lead role of the Wizard.

Today, however, brings news from another one of the Oz films in the works. It’s being reported that Warner Brothers is now in negotiations with Robert Zemeckis to direct their version of the tale. And what will their version of the tale be? Well, it looks like it will be something familiar to all of us. Instead of re-adapting Baum’s book to avoid stepping on the toes of the classic 1939 film that everyone knows and loves, Warner Bros. is planning to use the actual screenplay from the ’39 film for this movie.

Surprisingly, though you might expect Zemeckis’s involvement to mean he would be using the performance capture style he’s used in The Polar Express, Beowulf, and A Christmas Carol, the movie is currently planned to be live-action. Don’t forget, Zemeckis may be doing a lot of these performance capture movies lately, but he’s also the director behind movies like all three Back to the Future films, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Forrest Gump, and Cast Away.

With this news, we now have the possibility for multiple Wizard of Oz movies, all taking their approach from different angles: one adapting the book their own way, one remaking the classic 1939 movie, and one based on the Broadway hit, Wicked. Oh, and let’s not forget the animated sequel that’s already on the way, Dorothy of Oz.

[Source: Deadline]