The movie doesn’t even come out until tomorrow, but it would appear that Disney likes the way that Oz the Great and Powerful is tracking. The movie is expected to score around $80 million at the box office this weekend.

It’s being reported that the studio has already commissioned a sequel to the movie, with screenwriter Mitchell Kapner set to pen the script. Kapner co-wrote the first movie with David Lindsay-Abaire, and has also written The Whole Nine Yards, Romeo Must Die, and The Whole Ten Yards.

No details are known yet as to where the sequel might take us, but it’s a fine line they’ll have to walk. Kapner will be able to use L. Frank Baum‘s original book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as he sees fit (it’s in the public domain), but, if their plan is to re-adapt Baum’s book in an attempt to basically remake the 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz (which is owned by Warner Brothers) and recapture some of that story’s magic, they’ll have to avoid certain specific elements, such as Dorothy’s ruby slippers.

Would you want to see a modern take on the classic Wizard of Oz story (don’t forget the ’39 movie was not the first of its kind; plenty of other lesser-known earlier films were made based on Baum’s fantastical tale—see: 1910 l 1925), or would you rather see a different story told?

[Source: Variety]