LOS ANGELES • Want to see Dorothy's famed ruby slippers from The Wizard Of Oz (1939)?

Nearly a century after the idea was first floated, a museum dedicated to the magic of cinema is finally set to wow fans in Los Angeles. The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, slated to open by the end of next year, will be devoted to the past, present and future of film.

It is the brainchild of the Academy of Picture Arts and Sciences, the institution behind the Oscars.

A copy of a script annotated by Gregory Peck for the 1962 drama To Kill A Mockingbird, the doors to Rick's Cafe from Casablanca (1942) and the typewriter used by Joseph Stefano to write the screenplay to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) are among a trove of objects that will be on display.

Designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano, the near US$400 million (S$550 million) museum will be housed in a historic building - the Saban Building, formerly home to the May Company department store.

Several Hollywood A-listers, including Tom Hanks, Annette Bening and Laura Dern, have been involved in the project, hosting fund-raising events and drumming up support both at home and abroad.

The museum will open with a retrospective devoted to Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, whose animation masterpieces include Princess Mononoke (1997) and the Oscar-winning Spirited Away (2001).

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE