Mila Kunis Going To OZ with Raimi and James Franco

Mila Kunis is a real witch… or at least Disney and Sam Raimi seem to think so, according to the latest from Variety. As of late last week, Kunis has officially signed on for Oz: The Great and Powerful, the prequel to The Wizard of Oz.

The Black Swan star has been mentioned a few times in the past in regards to the Oz project but success brings popularity so the timing of other projects like Seth MacFarlane’s comedy Ted and the comic book adaptation of Akira, which she was previously attached to, had to be figured out. There was also some questions about which witch Kunis would portray.

Things have apparently been worked out now because Kunis will be playing Theodora, one of three witchy sisters who battle the man who will become Oz for control of the magical realm. James Franco has the role of Oz, a con artist who ends up in the land of magic after he flees a traveling circus in a hot air balloon and gets swept away by a tornado.

With the title character and one witch down, the studio is now setting their sights on casting Glinda and Evanora. The names being mentioned for the remaining witches are Kate Beckinsale, Olivia Wilde, Amy Adams, Rebecca Hall, and Keira Knightley, although Adams might be out of the running now since she recently signed on as Lois Lane in Zack Snyder’s Superman reboot.

Oz: The Great and Powerful doesn’t have a release date scheduled yet, but the production team probably won’t waste too much time so they can take advantage of the boom in fairy tale and fantasy stories like Snow White and the Huntsman and Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters that will be arriving in theaters in the future.