'Dark Oz' to be screen trilogy

Pras Michel options film, TV rights

By WINTER MILLER

Pras

Hip-hop artist Pras Michel of the Fugees has optioned film and TV rights to comic series "Dark Oz," originally published by Caliber Comics. Storyline follows an older Dorothy Gale in a "gothic and more macabre" setting as she journeys through Oz with the characters known to millions via Frank L. Baum's "Wonderful Wizard of Oz."

Screenplay was adapted from the work of original comic creators Aaron Denenberg, Ralph Griffith and Stuart Kerr with plans to begin production at the end of 2008. Pic will be a live-action version of the comic trilogy, which Michel intends to produce as three separate films. In addition to producing duties, Michel plans to star as the Scarecrow.

Michel produced upcoming release "The Mutant Chronicles" with John Malkovich and Thomas Jane, and a 2007 docu on homelessness, "Skid Row," in which Michel lived as a homeless man in Los Angeles for nine days.