The announcement of a remake/reboot/prequel of “The Wizard of Oz” was met with the usual knee-jerk backlash, but add director Sam Raimi and a cast that includes James Franco, Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams, and things for Disney’s “Oz the Great and Powerful” began looking up. Now the first trailer from the film has premiered, and it’s an even more promising sign that this might turn out to be a pretty spectacular bit of entertainment after all. The footage debuted a couple of hours ago at Comic-Con in San Diego, where it wowed the 6,000 strong crowed in Hall H, and now you can see it for yourself.

Franco plays a con artist who flees his black-and-white troubles in a hot air balloon, gets caught up in a tornado and lands in a hyper colorful land called Oz. There he’s greeted by three witches, played by Kunis, Williams and Weisz and a myriad of other magical beings. Not much plot details are revealed in the montage-style trailer that clearly seeks to show off its impressive aesthetics, but I have a feeling this movie is going to lean heavily on those visual wow factors anyway.

“Oz the Great and Powerful” which is, of course, in 3D, will be released on March 8, 2013, and the first trailer can be viewed below.