iwNEWS: Sci Fi TV series will channel Wizard of OZ

The Wizard of Oz is about to get a makeover -- but not like any makeover you know.

A wildly re-imagined, six-hour science-fiction fantasy called Tin Man will start shooting in Vancouver this spring, and will premiere on the U.S. Sci Fi Channel in December, Sci Fi program chief Mark Stern announced Friday at the semi-annual gathering of the Television Critics Association.

Tin Man is loosely based on L. Frank Baum's classic book, and will feature Tony winner Alan Cumming in the role of Glitch, one of a motley crew of colourful characters trapped in a netherworld called "the Outer Zone."

Tin Man tells about a young woman pulled out of her dreary day-to-day life and transplanted into the Outer Zone, a realm "rife with wonder but oppressed by dark magic." Her journey begins on a fabled "Old Road," which eventually leads to a wizard known as the Mystic Man.

The miniseries is being written by Steven Long Mitchell and Craig Van Sickle, who created the cult TV series The Pretender, and produced by Gulliver's Travels' Robert Halmi, Sr. and Robert Halmi, Jr.