The Muppets' Wizard of Oz/Archive 1 - Production

Production

When The Walt Disney Company acquired the Muppets franchise from The Jim Henson Company in February 2004, the Muppets were re-introduced to the public by marketing products and guest appearing on television shows such as Good Morning America and America's Funniest Home Videos. After a new film titled The Muppets' Wizard of Oz was announced by The Jim Henson Company, Fox Television Studios, Touchstone Television, and the Muppets Holding Company signed on to help produce it.

Filming took place throughout September 2004 in Vancouver, British Columbia. Before filming, ABC announced that the film would be based on the original book, not the 1939 film. In many ways, elements from The Muppets' Wizard of Oz follow the elements of the original book more closely than that of the 1939 film. A prominent example is the changing of the color of the magic slippers; from ruby in the 1939 film to silver for the 2005 film. On August 25, 2004, it was announced that Hilary Duff, Jessica Simpson, and Ashanti had auditioned for the role of Dorothy Gale, but Ashanti had won the part. When asked about how she felt about working with the Muppets, Ashanti replied, "I love children, and to me, the Muppets are just like little kids." She also stated, "The director had to give me a few pointers and tips for acting with them, but the most important thing that I learned was to keep eye contact." Also in August 2004, BBC News reported that Quentin Tarantino would appear in the film.

Read more about this topic:  The Muppets' Wizard Of Oz/Archive 1

Famous quotes containing the word production:

    To expect to increase prices and then to maintain them at a higher level by means of a plan which must of necessity increase production while decreasing consumption is to fly in the face of an economic law as well established as any law of nature.
    Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)

    Constant revolutionizing of production ... distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.
    Karl Marx (1818–1883)

    ... if the production of any commodity necessitates the sacrifice of human life, society should do without that commodity, but it can not do without that life.
    Emma Goldman (1869–1940)