Fanning, Over the Rainbow?

Dakota Fanning is tipped to be riding a tornado to the yellow brick road….

The child-star cum new-best-friend-of-Kristen-Stewart is the frontrunner to star in sequel to “Wizard of Oz’. The film, “Oz”, is inspired by a line of toys created by “Spawn” dada Todd McFarlane.

Producer Basil Iwanyk (currently in London overseeing “Clash of the Titans”) tells the Daily Express, the film “will be set in the present day and feature Dorothy’s granddaughter.”

Adds co-producer McFarlane (“Spawn”), “You’ve still got Dorothy trapped in an odd place, but she’s much closer to the Ripley character from Alien [Sigourney Weaver] than a helpless singing girl.”

McFarlane, who is co-producing the Village/Warner production, has a vision of Oz that is a dark, edgy and muscular PG-13, without a singing Munchkin in sight. That was clear with a toy line he launched several years ago that featured a buxom Dorothy and Toto reimagined as an oversized snarling warthog.

Fanning, who recently completed filming on “The Twilight Saga’s New Moon”, would return to ‘Coraline’-esque territory with the film.

Screenwriter Josh Olson (“A History of Violence”) is going to tame it down a bit – but won’t lose the fun of the inflated “Oz” characters.

“I saw those toys, and Dorothy as some bondage queen isn’t something I want to do,” Olson told Daily Variety in 2007. “The appealing thing about the Baum books to me is how wildly imaginative they are. There are crazy characters from amazing places. I want this to be ‘Harry Potter’ dark, not ‘Seven’ dark.”

Being that the ‘Fanning’ casting ‘scoop’ has emerged at a British newspaper portal, I’d sprinkle a little salt on it before ringing up Mr Moviefone and booking your tix.