The Wizard of Oz: The Original Magic and Every Remake Since

In 1939, MGM spent $2.77 million on The Wizard of Oz and got back just $3 million in theaters — a margin so thin the studio didn't consider it profitable until a re-release a decade later. Today it's the most-watched film in American history, and Hollywood still hasn't stopped mining it. Six major versions later, the Oz universe has generated well over a billion dollars, and there's no sign it's done.

The Original That Almost Wasn't a Hit

Victor Fleming's Wizard of Oz was MGM's most expensive production of its time, a Technicolor gamble built around Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley, and Margaret Hamilton. The film picked up six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, and lost to Gone with the Wind — a rival MGM release from that very same year. It did take home two wins: Best Original Song for "Over the Rainbow" and Best Original Score.

None of that translated into box-office success at first. The film didn't turn a real profit until its 1949 theatrical re-release, and its true cultural takeover didn't come until 1956, when CBS began broadcasting it annually on network television. That decision — not the original theatrical run — is what built the film into the institution it became, and it's why the Library of Congress now credits it as the most-seen film in cinema history.

The Wiz Takes Oz to Harlem

Four decades after Dorothy first landed in Oz, the story got its first full reinvention. Sidney Lumet's 1978 The Wiz transplanted the story to a fantastical version of New York City, with an entirely Black cast led by Diana Ross as Dorothy and Michael Jackson as the Scarecrow — his only feature film role. Richard Pryor played the Wiz himself. Adapted from a Tony-winning Broadway musical, the film cost $24 million to make and brought back just $21 million, a flop by any measure at the time — though it's since been reassessed as a cult classic.

Return to Oz Goes Dark

Disney's next attempt took the opposite approach from the technicolor musicals that came before it. Directed by Walter Murch — in the only directing credit of his career — 1985's Return to Oz opens with Dorothy being institutionalized for talking about her adventures, then follows her back to a ruined Emerald City under the control of the Nome King. It introduced Fairuza Balk in her screen debut and leaned hard into body horror by family-film standards: severed heads, electroshock therapy, an army of wheeled creatures called Wheelers. Audiences weren't ready for it. The film cost $28 million and made back only $11.1 million — another box-office disappointment that's since built its own devoted following.

Oz the Great and Powerful Finally Turns a Profit

It took until 2013 for an Oz movie to make money the way a studio actually hopes for. Sam Raimi's prequel Oz the Great and Powerful cast James Franco as the conman-turned-wizard, with Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz, and Michelle Williams as the three witches whose rivalry sets up everything Dorothy will eventually walk into. Raimi, who described the project as his tribute to the 1939 original, delivered a film that cost $215 million and grossed $493 million worldwide — the first Oz movie since 1939 to be an unambiguous commercial hit.

Wicked Rewrites the Math Entirely

Nothing in the Oz catalog compares to what Jon M. Chu's two-part Wicked did next. Splitting the Broadway musical into Wicked (2024) and Wicked: For Good (2025), Chu built the films around Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba and Ariana Grande as Glinda, with Michelle Yeoh and Jeff Goldblum rounding out Oz's ruling class. The first film alone grossed $758.7 million worldwide on a $145 million budget; its sequel brought in another $540 million. Combined, the two Wicked films have out-earned every other Oz movie in history put together — and they've outgrossed the 1939 original's entire theatrical run, including every re-release since 1949, by a factor of roughly 36.

The Numbers, Side by Side

Cast Guide, Movie by Movie

Oz Isn't Finished Yet

Warner Animation Group already has its next Oz project in motion: an animated feature called Toto, retelling Baum's original story from the dog's point of view. Leonardo DiCaprio is producing a documentary on the 1939 film's legacy. And in Las Vegas, an AI-reimagined version of the original is currently running at the Sphere, feeding the same story to audiences through technology that didn't exist when Dorothy first landed in Oz. Nearly ninety years after a modest box-office return almost buried it, the road to Oz still hasn't run out.