Following the Yellow Brick Road has never been easier.

As of Tuesday, June 11th, Disney's Oz the Great and Powerful is available to purchase on Blu-ray, bringing the magic of L. Frank Baum's fantasy landscape right into your living room with the sharpest possible high definition visual and audio quality.

Huzzah for original sci-fi!

Warner Bros. announced today that Andy and Lana Wachowski started principal photography on Jupiter Ascending, starring Mila Kunis and Channing Tatum, two weeks ago at Leavesden Studios in the United Kingdom.

Perhaps more importantly, the studio also revealed an official synopsis of the mysterious project's intergalactic story.

In under a week, Oz the Great and Powerful has collected $92.5 million domestically. 

So Disney can afford to drop a length extended clip/trailer-thing in the hope that this glimpse at the lavishly created fantasy land will entice you to contribute your fifteen dollars to the movie's dumptrucks full of money.

Opening in theaters on March 8th is the highly anticipated new movie from visionary filmmaker Sam Raimi (Spider-Man 2) entitled Oz the Great and Powerful, which is a prequel to the 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz. The film features an excellent cast that includes Academy Award-nominees James Franco (127 Hours) and Michelle Williams (My Week with Marilyn), as well as Mila Kunis (Ted), Zach Braff (Garden State), Joey King (The Dark Knight Rises), Abigail Spencer (The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia), Bill Cobbs (The Bodyguard), Ted Raimi (The Evil Dead II), Bruce Campbell (Army of Darkness), and Academy Award-winner Rachel Weisz (The Constant Gardner).

IAR's Managing Editor Jami Philbrick recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Zach Braff to talk about his work on Oz the Great and Powerful. The popular actor discussed the new movie, why he wanted to work with director Sam Raimi, his first reactions to reading the script, improvising, collaborating with James Franco, how they visually created his character - Finley the Flying Monkey, operating a puppet on set, and if he would want to return for a sequel to the prequel, as well as his canine companion who gives a special shout-out to iamROGUE.

Disney's Oz the Great and Powerful goes back to a fantasy world familiar to the millions of fans who adore The Wizard of Oz.  Yet this time, they'll find no ruby slippers, no Toto, and no Dorothy.

Instead, this Friday's 3D adventure doubles back on the 1939 musical classic, to a time in Oz before Dorothy's arrival, to show just how the Wizard of Oz became the Wizard of Oz. 

Inspired by The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum's children's novel first published in 1900, Oz the Great and Powerful stars James Franco (127 Hours) as Oscar Diggs, an ethically dubious small-time circus magician.  When he inadvertently rides a hot-air balloon into a Kansas tornado, he finds himself in the strange and colorful land of Oz, where he's mistaken for a great wizard of prophecy.  Oscar plays along, complicating the already fraught relationships between three powerful witches: Glinda, Theodora, and Evanora, played respectively by Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine), Mila Kunis (Black Swan), and Rachel Weisz (The Bourne Legacy).  In order to save this magical landscape, Oscar Diggs must perform a miraculous trick by becoming a truly good man.

At the Los Angeles press day promoting Oz the Great and Powerful, IAR Managing Editor Jami Philbrick, along with other members of the press, had the opportunity to sit in on a press conference with James Franco, Michelle Williams, Mila Kunis, and Rachel Weisz.  All four talented actors were happy to discuss the big-budget fantasy film, heaping praise on their director and discussing their memories of the 1939 film, the collaborative nature of this production, spending time on wire rigs, and finding the humanity in their outsized characters.

Over the course of his thirty-five plus-years career director Sam Raimi has become one of the most respected and unique filmmakers of his generation. 

Beginning with The Evil Dead, which he made on a shoestring budget along with his childhood friends, actor Bruce Campbell (TV’s Burn Notice) and producer Robert Tapert, and continuing with Evil Dead II, Raimi showed off his true visionary style for combing terrifying horror with slapstick comedy. He would eventually finish his Evil Dead trilogy with the brilliant Army of Darkness, which abandoned the horror elements in favor of fantasy and comedy. The director would go on to make such beloved cult classics as Darkman, The Quick and the Dead, A Simple Plan, and The Gift before creating one of the most popular franchises in film history – the original Spider-Man series. Combined, Spider-Man and its two sequels, Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3, went on to earn almost $3 billion worldwide. Now Raimi returns to the big screen with the highly anticipated prequel to The Wizard of Oz, which is entitled Oz the Great and Powerful and opens in theaters on March 8th. 

The new movie was inspired by author L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," and is a prequel to the classic 1939 film, however it does not feature musical numbers like its predecessor. Oz the Great and Powerful focuses on a small-time magician named Oscar Diggs (James Franco), also known as Oz, who arrives in an enchanted land called Oz, where he is forced to decide if he will be a good man or a great one. Along the way he meets three witches, Glinda (Michelle Williams), Theodora (Mila Kunis), and her sister Evanora (Rachel Weisz), as well as a few companions for his journey including Finley the Flying Monkey (voiced by Zach Braff), China Girl (voiced by Joey King), and the Master Tinkerer (Bill Cobbs). 

As a longtime fan of both The Evil Dead and Spider-Man franchises, I was delighted recently when I had an opportunity to attend a press conference, along with several other members of the press, featuring visionary director Sam Raimi discussing his work on Oz the Great and Powerful. 

Don't dismiss this last trailer for next Friday's Oz the Great and Powerful just because it clocks in at one minute.

The trailer actually manages to stuff quite a lot into its fifty-second length, from Oscar Diggs in a black-and-white tornado through that still cool shot where color enters a widening frame, all the way to the actual conflict in L. Frank Baum's fantasy setting.

Two new promotional nuggets from Oz the Great and Powerful just over a week out from its nationwide release.

First, there's a TV spot heralding Disney's big 3D IMAX adventure as "the first movie event of 2013."  Then, there's a magazine cover that gives away Disney's months-long shell game of which beautiful witch turns into the iconic, green-skinned, hook-nosed Wicked Witch of the West.

Synopsis: When Oscar Diggs, a small-time circus magician with dubious ethics, is hurled away from dusty Kansas to the vibrant Land of Oz, he thinks he’s hit the jackpot—fame and fortune are his for the taking—that is until he meets three witches, Theodora, Evanora and Glinda (Michelle Williams), who are not convinced he is the great wizard everyone’s been expecting. Reluctantly drawn into the epic problems facing the Land of Oz and its inhabitants, Oscar must find out who is good and who is evil before it is too late. Putting his magical arts to use through illusion, ingenuity—and even a bit of wizardry—Oscar transforms himself not only into the great and powerful Wizard of Oz but into a better man as well.

With Oz the Great and Powerful right around the corner, Disney has unveiled the first official clip from this prequel to the classic The Wizard of Oz.