Surrender Dorothy!

It’s not a yellow brick road, but Dorothy and her friends are living a new adventure on the pavement of Bank Street.

The past two weeks have brought an unusual amount of nighttime activity — lights and cameras and fog machine, oh my — to downtown Bridgeport, where a film production crew is shooting a “Wizard of Oz” spin-off supposedly set in Manhattan.

In a part of the city where streets are usually deserted after nightfall, “The Witches of Oz” has brought to life flying monkeys, a screaming wicked witch and a grown-up Dorothy during the filming of some of its most dramatic climax moments.

Saturday night will be the crew’s last night filming in the city for this month, before they take a Christmas break and return for one day in January, then move on to other spots in the state, including Norwalk and Easton, said Director Leigh Scott. They have already filmed a bit in Norwalk and Stamford.

Scott said he’s “called in a lot of favors” to make the low-budget movie with some well-known actors he’d worked with before, including Christopher Lloyd, Billy Boyd and Lance Henriksen. He’s hoping for a small theater release in late spring or early summer 2010.

More at: Newstimes.com!