Has Raimi Caught The Burton Disease? The Latest OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL Trailer Has The Answer

Can we be blunt? Let's be blunt. I hated the first trailer for Sam Raimi's Oz The Great And Powerful. It was wildly overcooked and overwrought stuff, enormously over reliant on dodgy CGI, littered with design work that came across like rejects from Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland, and featuring a performance from a James Franco looking so lost in this big spectacle that I feared it may very well spell the end of Franco's brief run as a viable leading man. More to the point - and more worrying, given that he is right smack in the middle of the target market for this film - when The Boy saw it on the big screen he hated it, too.

After the high profile and very, very costly flop of John Carter Disney have a lot riding on this one. Sure, Marvel and Pixar are still printing them bags of money but the master brand is in tatters right now when it comes to live action content and not only do they need a win but they really can't afford a loss.

And so the marketing suits are back with a new, longer trailer for the film that dives a bit more into the story. And I like this one more, which is to say I'm slowly moving away from hate territory. Am I being too harsh? Check it below and weigh in.

Disney's fantastical adventure "Oz The Great and Powerful," directed by Sam Raimi, imagines the origins of L. Frank Baum's beloved character, the Wizard of Oz. When Oscar Diggs (James Franco), 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 (Mila Kunis), Evanora (Rachel Weisz) 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.