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(via Cinematical)


Deadline now reports that Sam Raimi has signed on to direct Robert Downey Jr. in Disney's Wizard of Oz prequel, Oz: The Great and Powerful.

The deal was finalized last night, making this Raimi's first directorial project since leaving Spider-Man 4.

Ever since Sam Mendes told Disney he wouldn't direct the Wizard of Oz prequel, Oz, the Great and Powerful, a number of filmmakers have been linked to the project as possible substitutes. Even Guillermo del Toro was rumored to be considered. But now Sam Raimi has officially accepted the gig.

The Spider-Man trilogy director would team up with Iron Man star Robert Downey Jr., who has long been set to play the titular "wizard" for the origin story, which has been scripted by Mitchell Kapner (The Whole Nine Yards).

Disney apparently wants to get this going soon, which makes sense given there are about a billion other Oz-based films in the works at various studios, so it would likely be his next film.

If Raimi is now headed to Oz, he won't end up doing The Hobbit, for which he was thought next in line after Del Toro's departure from that prequel. And he won't end up doing a World of Warcraft movie either.

Fans would rather see what a Raimi-directed Oz movie looks like than let the project fall into the hands of other less visionary directors like Adam Shankman and Timur Bekmambetov, both of whom have been candidates. There are more fans of the darker sort of L. Frank Baum adaptations, such as Disney's own Return to Oz, and they can now look forward to something along the tone of the Evil Dead movies.

And who wouldn't like to see Bruce Campbell as any number of Oz characters?