Salarian_American t1_j1xumwg wrote on December 28, 2022 at 4:54 AM

Reply to comment by Rolemodel247 in In Return to Oz (1985) the nightmare fueled sequel to the Wizard of Oz, why do so many of the characters look completely different from the first film? by ilovemychickens

Some of the books were public domain at this point, and Disney owned the movie rights to the ones that weren't. The last of the books didn't lose its copyright until 1996.

DrRexMorman t1_j1xwjv4 wrote on December 28, 2022 at 5:12 AM

> Disney owned the movie rights to the ones that weren

It didn't.

It paid MGM to use movie-specific stuff.

Scottland83 t1_j1ymozs wrote on December 28, 2022 at 10:42 AM

Disney had the rights to The Marvelous Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz, on which the movie was based. They had to make a movie before those books became public domain.

Salarian_American t1_j1zf00h wrote on December 28, 2022 at 3:24 PM

Right I was unclear. Disney had optioned the remaining Oz books, the ones that weren't already public domain and the ones that MGM didn't hold the movie rights to.