Back in June Sam Raimi officially became attached to Disney's Oz: Great And Powerful, with Robert Downey Jr. also mostly on board to play the titular wizard. Now the relationship has gotten even more secure; Deadline reports that Raimi is officially committed to the project, and though there's just "the hope" of landing Downey Jr. for the lead, "it's looking good."

To top things off, they've brought in David Lindsay-Abaire, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his play Rabbit Hole and also wrote the screenplay adaptation for the film, to handle rewriting duties. Lindsay-Abaire's previous screen credits include Robots and Inkheart, but the more promising statistic is that he was helping Raimi clean up Spider-Man 4 before they all realized it was a hopeless effort. Yes, I'd be skeptical too if that was all I knew, but Rabbit Hole-- which comes out later this year with high hopes of winning Nicole Kidman another Oscar-- is really damn good, and Lindsay-Abaire has a good grip on mixing comedy and drama even in genuinely tragic circumstances.

Of course, I have no idea how any of that will lend itself to Oz: Great and Powerful, since there's no word on exactly what they're doing with the character, or how much it will have to do with The Wizard of Oz whatsoever. The Raimi/Downey Jr./Lindsay-Abaire bodes good things, though, and it's really just great to see Raimi getting back to work after what must have been the major disappointment of watching Spider-Man 4 fall apart.