I remember going to Radio City Music Hall in the summer of 1985 to see The Black Cauldron. I was almost 10, and loved everything Disney and especially everything Oz (by this time I had read every Baum novel). The Black Cauldron confused me. This wasn't Snow White or Dumbo. It was much darker and louder than the typical Disney fare I knew. I remember leaving the theatre with a splitting headache. But I liked it.
Anyway, at the Music Hall, my mom bought me a Disney program that talked about the studio's two big movies for the summer of '85. One was The Black Cauldron. The other was Return to Oz. Almost as soon as I saw the colorful, bizarre pictures of Oz in that program, I instantly forgot the movie I had just seen, and remember wandering around New York all day with my nose in the program, feasting my eyes on the images of the new Oz film. On the bus ride home, I read and re-read the articles on the making of the film over and over.
Alas, I never got a chance to see Return to Oz in the theatre. I bought the paperback novelization, and it was one of the first movies I ever rented when my dad brought home our first VCR.
Like The Black Cauldron, I found Return to Oz somewhat strange. Again, this was a Disney production, but far from Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo. And it certainly wasn't the classic MGM film that I watched every year. But being an Oz nut, I was entertained by the film, and watched it again and again. I especially loved Jack Pumpkinhead, as he was my favorite character from the books.
The film is based on two of Baum's sequels to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: The Marvelous Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz.
If I remember correctly, both films originally had mixed reviews and both were relative failures in their initial run. It wasn't until The Little Mermaid four years later that Disney once again dominated the box office.