Kenya Barris to Remake ‘Wizard of Oz’ and ‘It’s A Wonderful Life,’ POC in the Lead Roles

Kenya Barris has, for some reason, been given the impossible task of remaking, or rather updating, two classic films: “The Wizard of Oz” and “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

Interviewed at Sundance, Barris confirms that the script for his reimagining of “The Wizard of Oz” is completed. His version of Dorothy is a girl who lives in the Bottoms, which is a huge apartment complex located in Inglewood, California.

The original ‘Wizard of Oz’ took place during the Great Depression and it was about self-reliance and what people were going through. I think this is the perfect time to switch the characters and talk about what someone imagines their life could be. It’s ultimately a hero’s journey, someone thinks something’s better than where they’re at, and they go and realize that where they’re at is where they should be. I want people to be proud and happy about where they’re from. But I want the world to take a look at it and I hope that will come through.

Last May, Daniel Richtman reported that this reimagining of ‘Oz’ would feature a POC in the lead and wouldn’t be a musical. Nicole Kassel is set to direct Barris’ script. She helmed the 2004 indie, “The Woodsman” and 2011’s “Little Bit of Heaven.” Otherwise, Kassel has mostly dabbled in television, directing episodes of “Watchmen,” “The Americans” and “The Killing.”

Barris also confirms that Paramount entrusted him in remaking Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Barris says that the story will also revolve around a person of color. He believes that the 1946 version’s main character, indelibly played by Jimmy Stewart, was specially made for a POC:

It’s a guy who’s trying to help out his community and things are going to turn around on him. I think that’s the perfect story to tell for a person of color — Black or brown — to get into that because our communities have some issues and someone trying to help that community out. I think that’s the perfect vehicle to tell that story from.

What I find most puzzling is not that these studios would even dare remake these stone-cold classics, which is sacrilege in my books, but, rather, that they would hire Barris to do it.

If you don’t know much about Barris, he’s the creator of the sitcom “Blackish” and has directed some fairly awful films, “You People” and “Coming 2 America” spring to mind. However, Barris’ specialty seems to be in the business of remaking films into catastrophic failure: he’s already “updated” the likes of “Shaft,” “White Men Can’t Jump,” “The Witches,” and “Cheaper by the Dozen.”

I think one of the biggest myths of Hollywood is that the industry is creatively bankrupt. I can assure you that's not the case. There are many people who every day pitch fresh new original ideas, hoping that they will one day get the chance to make it into a movie. The issue is that all of these big studio executives would rather remake/reboot/update, whatever you want to call it, the same franchises over and over again. IP is the name of the game.

So, why change the leads of both of these classics to POC? Isn’t there going to be inevitable backlash that Dorothy isn’t a Caucasian redhead? The answer, someone recently told me, makes a lot of sense. These studios rehash old IP and recast them with inclusive actors because they get the advantage of having free marketing from people arguing about it online. Quite ingenious. It’s basically cultivated viral marketing.