Kevin Winter/Getty Images; David Livingston/Getty ImagesWe're off to see the wizard—and we hear it's going to be nothing like the trip Dorothy took down the yellow brick road.
James Franco stars in the upcoming Oz: The Great and Powerful, a prequel to the classic Judy Garland film told from the Wizard's point of view.
So will Franco be belting out a cover of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow?" Or "Defying Gravity" à la Idina Menzel in Broadway's Wicked?
Not at all!
"It's before the Scarecrow and the Tin Man and Dorothy and all that," Abigail Spencer, who plays the Wizard's assistant May, told me at the recent L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center benefit for homeless youth services at the Sunset Tower hotel. "It really goes deeper into how that story came to be.
"It really is what the books are based on," she added. "This is the real story and I think this is actually what the writer [L. Frank Baum] intended when he wrote them."
Michelle Williams, Mila Kunis and Rachel Weisz also star in the Sam Raimi-directed flick. It was recently reported that Raimi will pay homage to the 1939 musical movie by beginning in black-and-white before transitioning to color.
Spencer is also reteaming up with Franco on Wrong Number, a romantic comedy that she wrote and will star in opposite newcomer Andrew Leeds. Franco is producing and is set to make a cameo, Spencer said.
Also at the Gay & Lesbian Center event, which honored stylist reality star Rachel Zoe, were Anne Hathaway, Kelly Osbourne, Mandy Moore, Garcelle Beauvais, Perry Reeves, Jennifer Grey and Fashion Police's George Kotsiopoulos.