Contrary to what newcomers might (understandably) assume, director Sam Raimi's 2013 Disney fantasy feature "Oz the Great and Powerful" is not the Mouse House's answer to "Wicked." (That would be "Maleficent.") No doubt, the studio was clued into the "Wizard of Oz"-inspired novel turned stage musical's record-breaking success (it had premiered on Broadway about a decade earlier) and would have loved to snag the film rights. Universal, however, had roundly beaten Disney to the punch in that race, so The House That Mickey Built had to find another way to tap into the Oz fever of the 2010s.
Speaking of which, it's easy to forget just how many Oz projects were in the works back when Raimi's film came together. Many of these ventures fell by the wayside (like "Surrender Dorothy," a movie about Dorothy Gale's great, great granddaughter that had Drew Barrymore attached to direct and sounded intriguing), while others came and went without leaving much of an impression (like the animated 2013 musical "Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return," a film that it turns out I didn't hallucinate watching in a theater). As for "Oz the Great and Powerful," it somehow wound up grossing almost half a billion dollars in theaters, largely by tapping into the post-"Avatar" 3D demand that was still fervent at that point.
Nowadays, you can stream Raimi's Oz adventure on Disney+, but is it worth your time? Personally, I'm one of those weirdos who adores the nightmare fuel that is Disney's other Oz picture, "Return to Oz," a film that only made a tiny fraction of what "Oz the Great and Powerful" did at the box office. More curious still, if you look at the movie's 56 percent freshness and audience Rotten Tomatoes scores, it appears people are divided on Raimi's flick. But why?