“David Bowie is”, which runs from March 23 to August 11, has broken box office records at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, with 50,000 advance tickets sold.

Organizers at a press preview on Wednesday were at pains to point out that more tickets were available and the demand underlines 66-year-old Bowie’s lasting impact on music, fashion, video and beyond.

It also coincides with the release just over a week ago of Bowie’s new album “The Next Day”, his first new material for a decade. The record hit number one in the British album charts at the weekend, marking his return to the top after 20 years.

“His radical innovations across music, theatre, fashion and style still resound today in design and visual culture and he continues to inspire artists and designers throughout the world,” said Martin Roth, director of the V&A.

Drawing heavily on the David Bowie Archive, the show features more than 300 objects, with pride of place going to Bowie’s stage costumes which allowed him to adopt alternative personas and create an aura of mystery and invention.

Among the recognizable outfits are a striped bodysuit by Japanese designer Kansai Yamamoto for the Aladdin Sane tour in 1973 and the Pierrot costume by Natasha Korniloff which featured in the groundbreaking music video for “Ashes to Ashes”.

“SEISMIC SHIFT”

Among the costumes on display from Bowie’s “Ziggy Stardust” phase is the blue, gold and red padded jumpsuit by Freddie Burretti that marked a turning point in Bowie’s career.

He wore the suit for a performance of “Starman” on Britain’s TV chart show “Top of the Pops” on July 6, 1972 complete with flame-orange hair, make-up and red patent boots, representing what organizers called a “seismic shift” in pop culture.

People were intrigued and appalled in equal measure at the sight of the otherwordly androgynous being, a bold new creation which has inspired performers ever since.

True to Bowie’s multi-media experimentation, the show includes footage from famous concerts shown on giant screens as well as a mime show enacted by Bowie in 1969 which anticipates the downside of becoming famous.

His attention to detail can be seen throughout.

On a design sketch for an outfit to be worn on the U.S. “Saturday Night Live” show Bowie wrote: “may be I’m wrong about color? What do you think.”

He also appeared not to take himself too seriously, describing a short bodysuit, designed by Yamamoto, as his “impossibly silly ‘bunny’ costume”.

He soaked up culture and history wherever he went, including his stay in Berlin in the late 1970s where he absorbed Brecht, cabaret and Expressionist art and produced three acclaimed albums – “Low”, “Heroes” and “Lodger”.

He recorded a Mandarin version of his 1997 song “Seven Years in Tibet”, reflecting his interest in the region and its Buddhist religion.

The track prompted one Chinese fan to write, in a note on display at the exhibition: “I think I am flying in the sky when I listen to your mandarin song, you know!”

The displays are accompanied by an impressive soundtrack that includes hits like “Space Oddity”, “Changes” and “Under Pressure”, which he released with Queen in 1981.

In fact, all that is missing from “David Bowie is” is the man himself. If he were to visit, it would most likely be incognito, as Bowie has shunned the limelight altogether for much of the last decade.

“We’re really hoping David does appear at some point,” said co-curator Geoffrey Marsh.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

The early work is not considered one of the artist’s best and was little known until it appeared in public at an exhibition in Rouen in northern France in 1961.

But the auction house is hoping that its provenance – the painting was originally in the collection of Poussin’s greatest patron in Rome, scholar Cassiano dal Pozzo – will help boost interest when it goes under the hammer in London on July 2.

“It was painted right after he arrived in Rome and he obviously developed as his career progressed,” said Georgina Wilsenach, head of old master and British paintings at Christie’s.

“I don’t think that takes away its appeal,” she added. “It is quite unusual. In terms of (Poussin) works coming up for auction, I think that most are religious paintings or mythological subjects.”

The canvas, dating from the mid-1620s and measuring around 1.0 by 1.35 meters, depicts Hannibal on an elephant leading his troops on the fabled journey from Iberia into northern Italy via the Alps to attack Roman forces in the Second Punic War.

The dramatic early picture from an artist famed for works like “The Death of Germanicus” and “The Abduction of the Sabine Women” was snapped up by Cassanio for the then extravagant sum of 40 scudi.

According to Christie’s, Poussin’s patron paid over the odds for Hannibal in an apparent bid to help the artist who had fallen seriously ill while in Rome and, unable to work, found himself penniless.

PATCHY AUCTION RECORD

Poussin and Cassiano met soon after the French painter moved to Rome in 1624, but Cassiano was dispatched abroad on a papal legation and during his absence the artist lived hand-to-mouth and was forced to sell his pictures for whatever he could get.

Those financial difficulties ended with the return of Cassiano, who, along with his younger brother Carlo Antonio, acquired almost 50 works by Poussin including some of his masterpieces like the first “Seven Sacraments” series.

Poussin is considered one of the most influential artists in European art history and in 1640 was summoned by French king Louis XIII to be court painter, but his record at auction does not always reflect his reputation.

The highest price for a work by Poussin at auction is $6.7 million, set at Sotheby’s in 1999 for “The Agony in the Garden”.

When Christie’s offered the key “Sacrament of Ordination” in 2010 for 15 to 20 million pounds, it did not find a buyer.

Eventually that work – a Cassiano commission and among the most important in Poussin’s oeuvre – sold to the Kimbell Art Museum in Texas for $24.3 million in a private deal, the New York Times reported in 2011.

Wilsenach said she believed Poussin’s depiction of Hannibal could appeal to collectors not normally interested in old master paintings yet attracted by the dramatic and powerful subject matter.

The picture would be on show in New York during Asian art week and also visit Moscow before the auction in recognition of that potential appeal, she added.

Something similar may have happened in New York in January, according to Wilsenach, when a 1574 Scipione Pulzone portrait of Jacopo Boncompagni in magnificent armor fetched $7.6 million at a Christie’s sale versus estimates of $1.5-2.5 million.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

The study, commissioned by the European Fine Art Foundation
which organises The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF), estimated
the worldwide art and antiques market contracted by seven
percent last year to 43 billion euros ($56 billion).

The study, compiled by academic Clare McAndrew, founder of
the consulting firm Arts Economics, estimated Chinese art sales
fell 24 percent to 10.6 billion euros in 2012.

Auction sales in China dropped an even steeper 30 percent,
pushing it into second place in the art market rankings with a
25 percent share behind the United States, which regained its
position as market leader with 33 percent.

Britain remained the world’s third most important art market
at 23 percent, according to the study released to coincide with
this year’s TEFAF which opens in Maastricht on March 15.

“The main reasons for the deceleration in (Chinese) growth
were both demand factors (including a slowdown in economic
growth and continuing liquidity constraints) and a reduced
amount of high quality, high priced works coming onto the
market,” said the report.

“Many art funds and other speculative investors also reduced
their participation in the market during the year.”

The study added that collectors were increasingly focusing
on works by so-called “blue chip” artists.

“Many art buyers are minimising risk by opting for the
best-known artists at the top end of the market with post-war
and contemporary art performing strongly,” it said.

That helped boost auction sales of post-war and contemporary
art by five percent in 2012 to almost 4.5 billion euros and took
that sector’s overall market share to 43 percent.

Modern art was the next biggest sector with auction sales of
3.2 billion euros, representing 30 percent of the fine art
auction market but a fall of 17 percent from its 2011 peak of
3.8 billion.

Private retail and dealer sales, as opposed to the auction
room, fell four percent to 22.2 billion euros, with the lower
end of the market recording the weakest performance.

Several art analysts have voiced concerns over what they say
is a growing divide between the top end of the market, where
ultra-wealthy buyers snap up rare treasures for staggering sums,
and mid- to lower-tier sales which have been more susceptible to
broader economic pressures.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

The outspoken comments, sure to cause a stir in the operatic world of huge professional pressures and fragile egos, came at a press briefing to outline the upcoming season at the Royal Opera House in London, where British-born Pappano is music director.

Covent Garden, home to the globally renowned Royal Opera and Royal Ballet companies, has suffered a series of cast changes in recent years, some of them at the last minute.

Among the most dramatic was the decision less than a week before curtains went up in December to replace American soprano Jennifer Rowley in the rarely-performed Meyerbeer epic “Robert le Diable” due to a “musical problem”.

Since then German soprano Anja Harteros has pulled out of the role of Elizabeth of Valois in “Don Carlo” in May because she was “not able at this point to stay abroad for an extended period of time as originally planned”, according to a statement.

Pappano did not mention names, and defended the opera house’s decision to stage “Robert le Diable”, but did not hold back in voicing his opinion of some of today’s top opera stars.

“It happens a lot,” he told reporters, referring to cancellations. “It happens more and more. There’s something about this generation of singers, that they are weaker in their bodies or don’t care.

“I don’t know what it is, but it’s something that is very very frustrating for me personally.”

Asked afterwards to expand on his remarks, he explained it was partly a health issue, with common colds tending to last longer than, say, 10 years ago.

“You can imagine singers. That’s a real problem. And there’s so much travelling involved now with good singing. I think that people are overbooked, they’re over-committed, too many new things, the stress on them and the amount of PR.”

“TAKE LONGER BREAKS”

Pappano, 53, who received a knighthood in 2012, said singers of today appeared to be physically weaker than past generations.

“I mean (for Spanish tenor Placido) Domingo to cancel, (he) would have to be on his death bed. It’s just a different generation.

“It’s taken much more lightly today, the idea of contract, the idea of a commitment. It’s true.”

He called on opera stars to take longer rest periods between roles to cut down on the risk of illness and exhaustion.

In the 2013/14 season, Pappano will conduct new productions of Wagner’s “Parsifal” and Verdi’s rarely performed “Les Vepres siciliennes”, a co-production with the Royal Danish Opera which will include a major ballet section featuring 32 dancers.

The productions are part of a celebration of the bicentenaries of the composers who were both born in 1813, while Strauss, born in 1864, will also be honored next season with performances of “Elektra”, “Ariadne auf Naxos” and “Die Frau ohne Schatten”.

New Zealand’s Kiri Te Kanawa will make a rare appearance in “La Fille du regiment” in March, 2014, to mark her 70th birthday, while Simon Rattle, the British conductor in charge of the Berlin Philharmonic, will lead “Les Dialogues des Carmelites”.

“We engage with some of the major, difficult, juicy pieces,” Kasper Holten, director of opera, said of the new season, details of which are on the website www.roh.org.uk.

“I think the way to be sexy for your audiences in a world where everybody is fighting to get your attention is to really trust in your own quality.”

The 2013/14 Royal Ballet season will include a new full-length work based on “The Winter’s Tale” and a new production of “Don Quixote” to be created by acclaimed Cuban dancer Carlos Acosta who will also play the lead role in some performances.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

The Australian, who was born in England and is touring there
for the first time in 35 years, admits to being terrified at
some of the choices she made in a career boasting four Grammy
awards and a lead role in the biggest musical movie hit in U.S.
history.

“I like a challenge,” Newton-John, 64, told Reuters in an
interview before starting a six-concert tour that ends on March
17 in Manchester.

“I was always afraid of these changes but I did them anyway,
kind of ‘face your fears’ … because I felt you also had to
challenge yourself a little bit. But I was terrified.”

The 1981 release of “Physical”, a song from the album of the
same name, was banned by some radio stations in the United
States banned for raunchy lyrics such as “There’s nothing left
to talk about/Unless it’s horizontally.”

“I remember calling (manager) Roger Davies right after I’d
finished it … and going ‘Oh, I’m not sure we should put this
out, it’s a little too risque’. He said: ‘It’s too late, love,
it’s gone to radio’.”

Adding to the controversy was the video, in which
Newton-John played a gym instructor in a tight leotard
surrounded by oiled body-builders portrayed as gay in a twist
ending.

FROM NICE TO NAUGHTY

“I look back now and it’s hilarious, because that was so
naughty in its time,” she recalled. “That was another challenge
that worked, thank goodness. It was either going to be a big
success or nothing. There was no in-between with that song.

“It was banned in Utah and I did my television special for
the Physical Tour in Utah. I remember I was probably so
terrified I got sick right before the shoot.”

In fact, “Physical” proved to be the pinnacle of
Newton-John’s solo career, topping the U.S. pop charts and
becoming one of the best-selling singles of the decade.

By then, Newton-John had already left her comfort zone more
than once. She recalled pursuing a career as a performer despite
resistance from her parents, who wanted her to finish school.

She comes from an academic background – her grandfather was
Max Born, a German-British Nobel Prize-winning quantum
physicist.

“My grandfather apparently used to play music with Einstein,
they used to play chamber music together, so it (the musical
gene) goes back,” Newton-John said.

She left Australia for Britain in the 60s to make it as a
pop star. By the early 70s, she had featured in the charts and
on television before representing the United Kingdom at the 1974
Eurovision Song Contest, finishing fourth behind winners ABBA.

Then came a move to the United States, where Newton-John
broke into the country music scene despite being considered an
outsider. Her hit “Let Me Be There” won her a country vocal
Grammy.

SANDY IN SPANDEX

The next gamble came with “Grease”, the hit 1978 film
adaptation of the Broadway musical that would turn her into a
household name.

“Grease itself was a bold enough move – playing the second
character in Grease, and for that to be so successful, I mean,
who knew?”

Her character’s transformation from clean-cut “Sandy 1″ to
spandex-clad “Sandy 2″, out to snare John Travolta’s Danny, was
one that she took into real life, ditching the safety of soft
pop and country for an edgier image and sound.

The name of her next album? “Totally Hot”.

“The raunchy kind of image that Sandy 2 had, it gave an
opportunity to change my direction a little bit and do something
a little more fun,” she said.

“I did country, and then it was pop, and then ‘Grease’ kind
of went into rock and so I got to change a little bit. Everyone
does it now, but then it probably wasn’t so common.”

Newton-John, now based on the west coast of the United
States along with her family including daughter Chloe, said she
would continue to record new music but may cut back on touring.

“I have so many … other things I’m passionate about and
involved in and I love singing and I love recording, but touring
takes a toll and you’re away from home a lot,” she explained.

Newton-John, who survived breast cancer in 1992, has set up
a cancer centre in Australia and has campaigned on issues
including deforestation, dolphin culling and fracking.

Why does she take on so many issues outside music?

“I think it’s really for my mum,” she said. “My mum was
always writing letters to the council about problems, and so I
think I owe that to her.”

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Bieber, 19, sang and danced his way through his fourth night
at London’s O2 Arena on the European leg of his “Believe” world
tour, back to his normal self after collapsing on stage from
shortness of breath on Thursday.

The Canadian-born singer was treated by doctors backstage
and given oxygen on the third night of his London shows. He
returned to the stage after a 20-minute break and completed his
set but was later taken to hospital as a precaution, the
singer’s representatives told Reuters.

The singer also had an altercation with a UK photographer on
Friday, caught on camera by Reuters, which showed Bieber get out
of a van, try to move towards the unnamed photographer and
threaten him using several swear words.

He was reacting to the man’s foul-mouthed criticism of him
and his security team after the singer appeared to have made
contact with the photographer as they moved towards the vehicle.

The bouncers held Bieber back, but the incident is likely to
create more negative headlines for one of the world’s biggest
pop stars.

‘ROUGH WEEK’

Since being discovered on YouTube in 2008, Bieber has built
a huge following of mainly teenage girls attracted to his
clean-cut image, slick videos and catchy pop songs.

But the intense media spotlight that follows him around the
world has clearly unnerved the “Boyfriend” singer.

Bieber has had several run-ins with paparazzi in recent
years and took to Twitter this week to criticise the media for
what he called fabricated stories about him during his stay in
London, where he is performing his sold-out tour.

After the latest altercation, he returned to the
micro-blogging site, where he has more than 35 million
followers.

“Ahhhhh! Rough morning. Trying to feel better for this show
tonight but let the paps get the best of me…” he wrote.

“Sometimes when people r shoving cameras in your face all
day and yelling the worst thing possible at u … well I’m
human. Rough week.”

‘POP BRAT’

Thursday’s onstage collapse was not the first for Bieber.

He suffered a concussion during a concert in Paris last June
after falling into a glass wall.

Bieber’s illness came just days after he angered many fans
by appearing for his first night at the O2 nearly two hours
later than the advertised time.

The singer blamed technical issues for the delay, and said
he was only 40 minutes behind schedule, but the media jumped on
the story and the popular Sun tabloid referred to him in a March
7 story as “Pop brat Justin.”

The tabloid attention has not been limited to the late show.

Newspapers described as “bizarre” his decision to wear a gas
mask on a night out.

They also reported that Bieber, who celebrated his 19th
birthday in London last week, tried to take 14-year-old Jaden
Smith, son of actor Will Smith, to a club, where Smith was
turned away, along with Bieber and his entourage.

Bieber took to Twitter and Instagram to vehemently deny the
reports he tried to take the underage Smith to a club, saying
instead he was forced to leave the venue when the club’s
security guards behaved aggressively towards his fans who were
lined up outside.

(Additional reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy in Los Angeles; Editing
by Sophie Hares and Peter Cooney)

The altercation, caught on camera and featured on popular celebrity news websites including TMZ, showed the 19-year-old get out of a van, try to move towards the unnamed member of the paparazzi and threaten him using several swear words.

He was reacting to the man’s foul-mouthed criticism of him and his security team after the singer appeared to have made contact with the photographer as they moved towards the vehicle.

The bouncers held Bieber back, but the incident is likely to create yet more negative headlines for one of the world’s biggest pop stars.

Bieber said he would go ahead with a scheduled Friday concert, the final of four gigs at London’s O2 Arena, which had been in doubt after he collapsed on stage on Thursday after suffering from shortness of breath.

After a 20-minute break during which he was given oxygen by doctors, he completed his set but was later taken to hospital as a precaution.

“Justin has been released from the hospital after a check-up and while he’s feeling a little under the weather, he’s planning on going ahead with tonight’s show,” his spokesman said.

“ROUGH WEEK”

Since being discovered on YouTube in 2008, Bieber quickly built a huge following of mainly teenaged girls attracted to his clean-cut image, slick videos and catchy pop songs.

But the intense media spotlight which follows him around the world has clearly unnerved the “Boyfriend” singer.

Bieber has had several run-ins with paparazzi in recent years and took to Twitter this week to criticize the media for what he called fabricated stories about him during his stay in London, where he is performing his sold out “Believe” tour.

After the latest altercation, he returned to the micro-blogging site, where he has more than 35 million followers.

“Ahhhhh! Rough morning. Trying to feel better for this show tonight but let the paps get the best of me…” he wrote.

“Sometimes when people r shoving cameras in your face all day and yelling the worst thing possible at u … well I’m human. Rough week.

“Not gonna let them get the best of me again. Gonna get focused on this show tonight. Adrenaline is high now. Gonna put it on the stage.”

“POP BRAT”

Thursday’s onstage collapse was not the first for Bieber.

He suffered concussion during a concert in Paris last June after falling into a glass wall.

Bieber’s illness came just days after he angered many fans by appearing for his first night at the O2 nearly two hours later than the advertised time.

The singer blamed technical issues for the delay, and said he was only 40 minutes behind schedule, but the media jumped on the story and the popular Sun tabloid referred to him in a March 7 story as “Pop brat Justin”.

The tabloid attention has not been limited to the late show.

Newspapers described as “bizarre” his decision to wear a gas mask on a night out.

They also reported that Bieber, who celebrated his 19th birthday in London last week, tried to take 14-year-old Jaden Smith, son of actor Will Smith, to a club, where he was turned away, along with Bieber and his entourage.

Bieber took to Twitter and Instagram to vehemently deny the reports he tried to take underage Smith to a club, saying instead he was forced to leave the venue when the club’s security guards behaved aggressively towards his fans who were lined up outside.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White; Editing by Sophie Hares)

The next big question for David Bowie and his remarkable
comeback is whether the element of surprise and subsequent
acclaim will turn into record sales.

“The Next Day” is in stores on Monday in Britain, where
industry watchers are confident it will top the album charts,
and on Tuesday in the United States, where the “Space Oddity”
singer has enjoyed more patchy success in the past.

It is already available in other key markets, and the early
signs are that the 66-year-old master of reinvention has a hit
on his hands.

According to his official website, the deluxe version of the
recording went to No. 1 on the digital iTunes album charts in 11
of 12 countries where it was released on Friday, including
Australia, Germany and Sweden.

“There has been a lot of interest in both the social and
traditional media which will connect not only with the
established fan base but also with younger fans,” said Gennaro
Castaldo, head of press at British music retailer HMV.

“As a campaign, I can’t think of many that have been more
brilliantly orchestrated,” he added.

Ironically, part of that “campaign” has been for Bowie to
remain invisible, allowing collaborators like producer Tony
Visconti to tell the media about how the star’s first studio
album since 2003′s “Reality” came about.

So rare had sightings of the “Starman” become in New York,
where he lives, that articles appeared in the British press late
last year speculating the “recluse” had unofficially retired.

“GRETA GARBO OF POP”

Simon Goddard, author of new Bowie book “Ziggyology”
published by Random House imprint Ebury, said his mystique was a
part of the appeal, and showed that his interest in music far
outweighed any appetite for the trappings of celebrity.

“He released two albums in the very early 70s featuring
covers of himself in poses inspired by Greta Garbo,” Goddard
told Reuters.

“Fast forward three or four decades and he becomes a
rarely-sighted paparazzi quarry living in New York … He
engages with the media on his strict terms because he’s
surpassed any desire to engage otherwise. His art is all the
engagement he needs.”

Bowie, who has shunned the limelight since he suffered a
heart attack on tour in 2004, last performed on stage in 2006.
It was with a sense of shock that his fans woke up on Jan. 8,
his 66th birthday, to the news he had released a new song.

“Where Are We Now?”, a melancholic look back to the time
Bowie spent in Berlin in the 1970s, was the first single from
“The Next Day”, followed weeks later by “The Stars (Are Out
Tonight)”.

Both came with inventive videos which baffled as much as
they entertained, affirming that Bowie was still the enigma who
wowed the pop world in the late 1960s, 70s and 80s with
glam-rock, androgynous alter egos and a radical sense of
fashion.

Critics had barely a bad word to say about the 14-track
album, with the Independent’s Andy Gill calling it possibly “the
greatest comeback in rock’n'roll history” in a five-star review.

Alexis Petridis, writing in the Guardian, said: “Listening
to it makes you hope it’s not a one-off, that his return
continues apace.” [n:nL4N0BQ6O1]

Whether the return will include live performances remains to
be seen, although Bowie’s guitarist Gerry Leonard whetted
appetites when he told Rolling Stone magazine he thought it was
“50-50″ Bowie would tour again.

Author Goddard attempted to sum up the level of excitement
that has accompanied Bowie’s return.

“Bowie’s appeal has lasted because his influence is
fundamental to everything that we in the 21st century understand
as pop music,” he said. “Remove Bowie and pop’s whole house of
cards as built up over the last 40 years or so collapses.”

Bowie’s impact on modern music matched that of The Beatles -
and the only contemporary star to combine music and art to the
extent he did in the 70s was Lady Gaga, said Goddard.

“The hysteria is justified,” he added.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Not every project based on the American author’s adventures in Oz has been a hit – even with Michael Jackson as Scarecrow, the 1978 adaptation “The Wiz” suffered poor reviews.

But the award-winning, record-breaking musical “Wicked”, now in its 10th year, may have emboldened studios to revisit one of the world’s most popular and lucrative fantasy properties.

“I don’t think we’re in danger of tiring of Oz,” said Rhidian Davis, program manager at the British Film Institute, which is hosting a big retrospective of Oz-related cinema running at its Southbank home in London from March 1-14.

“One of the reasons for this success is the way in which children come to power, children topple adult figures in their world – Dorothy dispatches the Wicked Witch with a bucket of water,” he said of the lasting Oz phenomenon.

“It’s terrifically empowering in a way for children to think you can change things.”

The first test comes on Friday with the theatrical release of Disney’s 3D adventure “Oz the Great and Powerful”, which reportedly cost $300-325 million to make and market and has been described by the New York Times as a “breathtaking gamble”.

A lavish prequel to the original story, the movie stars James Franco in unfamiliar blockbuster territory as the wizard, after more familiar stars Robert Downey Jr. and Johnny Depp dropped out of the project, according to Hollywood trade press.

Industry estimates predict a hefty North American box office opening weekend of $65-75 million for the picture, directed by Sam Raimi. But experts also doubt it will have the staying power to match Disney’s similarly-pitched 2010 hit “Alice in Wonderland” which enjoyed global ticket sales of $1 billion.

ANIMATION ADAPTATION NEXT UP

Next up may be 3D animation movie “Dorothy of Oz”, which is near completion and due to hit theatres late in 2013 or early in 2014, according to producer Ryan Carroll.

With production costs of more than $60 million, it is a mid-level project by Hollywood standards but one that could help put Oz on the map for the digital age through mobile apps, video games and virtual worlds.

“This is an ideal time to revisit something of this creative nature and bring it up to date,” Carroll said of the long-term project from Summertime Entertainment.

“Licensing and merchandising and the ongoing creation of games will be a big part of it,” he told Reuters. “Today entertainment takes on more than just watching a movie – we’re creating a virtual world, apps, a whole environment.”

Summertime is basing the first movie of what it hopes will be a long-running Oz franchise on a novel by Roger Baum, L. Frank Baum’s great-grandson who produced a series of spinoffs.

As in “Oz the Great and Powerful”, there has been a tendency for movie adaptations to steer away from the 1900 Baum novel “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” as source material even though it is in the public domain.

That is because the 1939 adaptation, starring Judy Garland as Dorothy in the most famous and successful of all Oz films, still has such a passionate following, while several elements, including the ruby slippers, are still guarded copyrights.

“We’re already in development of the second (movie) project and have a total of 10 stories to draw from,” Carroll explained of the deliberate move away from the original novel.

“What we have are unique intellectual properties not in the public domain. We have unique characters owned solely by us.”

He is hoping that “Dorothy of Oz”, with “Glee” star Lea Michele voicing the title role and Patrick Stewart, Dan Aykroyd and James Belushi among the cast, will be ready for a big global media splash at the Cannes film festival in May.

“The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” was a hit almost from the word go, and had already been turned into a stage play by 1902.

Due to popular demand, Baum had returned to Oz more than a dozen times in print by the time of his death in 1919, and co-founded one of the first film studios in Los Angeles that produced three feature-length Oz films in its short life.

In 1939 came MGM’s “The Wizard of Oz”, one of the most elaborate productions to come out of Hollywood and which, according to the U.S. Library of Congress, is the most-watched film of all time.

(Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

The 19-year-old teen idol had been scheduled to take the stage at London’s O2 Arena at 8.30 p.m. but said in a Twitter message that the time was pushed back to 9.35 p.m. due to “some technical issues”.

Many fans, and the venue itself, appeared not to have got the message after complaints poured in that Bieber was nearly two hours late when he finally appeared at around 10.20 p.m..

“Last night I was scheduled after 3 opening acts to go on stage at 935 not 830 but because of some technical issues,” Bieber wrote on Twitter, the micro-blogging site where he boasts the largest following of more than 35 million people.

“I got on at 10:10..so…I was 40 min late to stage. there is no excuse for that and I apologize for anyone we upset. However it was great show and I’m proud of that.”

In the third of four tweets, he vowed to run on time on Tuesday, and in the final message said his relationship with the media, which picked up on fans’ displeasure following Monday night’s concert, was “not always easy but I’m trying”.

The popular Sun tabloid newspaper said many fans, some of them as young as five years old, had gone home by the time Bieber began while others voiced frustration.

There was no on-stage apology, although the O2 Arena did later address fans, popularly known as “Beliebers”, apologizing in a Twitter message to “all the Justin Bieber fans for the lateness of his show tonight”.

Bieber is due to play the same venue on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

Many people voiced their frustration at having to wait, while others reacted angrily to the headlines.

“Justin Bieber is my fave person but 2 hours late on stage is a joke!” fan Jess wrote on Twitter. “Does he realize that he has fans under the age of 10?”

Others jumped to his defense early on Tuesday.

“Feel really bad for @justinbieber now! Yes he was late but he put on a flipping good show! It was amazing,” said one.

Not all reviewers were quite so kind for the singer who was named by Forbes magazine in 2012 as the third most powerful celebrity in the world.

London’s Evening Standard awarded the “Baby” singer two stars, saying he turned “victory into defeat”.

“By the end, the O2 was barely half-full and when Bieber asked ‘Who’s seen me play before?’, he might have been better wondering who would spend time, money and adoration on seeing him again,” wrote critic John Aizlewood.

Bieber’s visit to Britain has probably not been his best.

On March 2, the day after he turned 19, he tweeted “worst birthday” amid reports some of his entourage were turned away from a London nightclub because they could not supply adequate proof of their age.

Bieber, who was discovered on YouTube in 2008, last month became the youngest artist to land five chart-topping albums in the United States following the release of his latest record, “Believe Acoustic”.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)