YELLOW BRICK ROAD: A DEAD END?

The rival entertainment industry news blogs, Nikki Finke’s Deadline.com and Sharon Waxman’s TheWrap.com, are continuing to fact-check each other. On Tuesday, Deadline ran an item that was picked up by numerous other entertainment-related websites (including this one) claiming that Robert Zemeckis was in talks with Warner Bros about directing a remake of The Wizard of Oz, using the original script by Noel Langley. However, late in the day on Wednesday, TheWrap poured cold water on the report, as it quoted Zemeckis’s publicist as “emphatically” denying that the director will take on such a project. TheWrap also quoted Zemeckis’s publicist as insisting that Deadline’s report was “completely untrue.” His denial quickly dampened howls of protests by fans of the original movie who were infuriated over the report about the remake plans and who demanded that Hollywood keep its hands off beloved classic films.