Every few years, Hollywood unearths a pitch so spectacularly misguided that it makes you grateful for the word "no." Today's entry: Daniel Radcliffe as a karate-kicking Cowardly Lion in a Wizard of Oz remake that would've starred Emma Watson as Dorothy.
Yes, really. Karate-kicking.
Radcliffe revealed the pitch in a Variety interview, and to his credit, he had the good sense to pass. The film, which never made it past the development stage (shocking, I know), would've reunited the Harry Potter stars in a "reimagining" of L. Frank Baum's classic—because apparently, Hollywood's IP recycling program extends even to public domain properties that have already been adapted 47 times.
The karate element is the part that really sticks in the brain like a bad jingle. Why would the Cowardly Lion know martial arts? Was there a deleted chapter in Baum's novel where the Lion trains at a dojo in the Emerald City? Did the Yellow Brick Road have a detour through a Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon fever dream?
This is what happens when studios greenlight pitches based on vibes rather than coherent storytelling. Someone in a development meeting said, "What if we make Oz, but cool?" and everyone nodded because no one wanted to be the person who doesn't get it. Except there was nothing to get. It was just word salad with a Harry Potter reunion stapled on top.
Radcliffe and Watson, to their immense credit, have spent the last decade actively avoiding being typecast or reduced to franchise nostalgia. Radcliffe has done everything from playing a farting corpse in Swiss Army Man to Weird Al Yankovic. Watson stepped away from acting entirely to focus on activism and education. Neither of them needs a Wizard of Oz reboot, let alone one where Radcliffe does roundhouse kicks in a lion costume.
The broader point here is that Hollywood is running out of ideas, and when that happens, executives reach for the laziest possible solution: reunite beloved actors in a property everyone already knows, add a "twist" that makes no narrative sense, and hope brand recognition does the heavy lifting.
Sometimes the best movies are the ones that never get made. This was definitely one of those times.
