James Franco Tapped To Lead "Oz: The Great And Powerful"

Gearing up for the title role in Oz: The Great and Powerful, the film looks to be on track to begin production in July, with Franco reuniting with his Spider-Man director Sam Raimi in the prequel to the L. Frank Baum novel that was scripted by Mitchell Kapner and David Lindsay-Abaire. Joe Roth is producing.

With a budget around $200 million, Oz is a major piece of business for Disney and joins the parade of revisionist fairy tales and classic kid stories that started with Disney's billion dollar grossing Alice in Wonderland, and continues with CBS Films' Beastly with Alex Pettyfer and Vanessa Hudgens and the Catherine Hardwicke-directed Amanda Seyfried-starrer Red Riding Hood from Warner Bros. Also gearing up for production starts are rival Snow White pictures The Brothers Grimm: Snow White from Relativity Media that has Julia Roberts starring, and Snow White and the Huntsman from Universal Pictures, with Kristen Stewart, Viggo Mortensen and Charlize Theron starring. Nicholas Hoult was just set for the Bryan Singer-directed Jack the Giant Killer at New Line and Paramount/MGM just set Peter Stormare to join Gemma Arterton, Jeremy Renner and Famke Janssen in Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters.