Talking with game designer American McGee today, IGN learned that the upcoming title Oz is "dead in the water." After Infogrames (now Atari) dropped the title, the development team shopped around to other publishers but found no one who was willing to take a chance on an intellectual property that hadn't yet proven itself in the video games arena. Sidestepping the lack of interest among game publishers, American McGee eventually sold the concept to Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney in hopes of generating enough anticipation to encourage companies like Microsoft or Sony to publish the game.

Until the film is green-lit, the development team doesn't feel it's worth trying to sell publishers on the game idea. This is the reverse of the usual scenario where successful games spawn action figures, comics and movies in a flurry of cross-marketing cash-ins. American's hoping to turn the process on its head and build awareness of a brand through other mediums in hopes of convincing publishers to take a chance on new ideas.