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Wednesday, November 11
Lots of new glimpses of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland have been leaking out over the last few days. Over the weekend, some scans of a magazine spread with images from the movie popped up, including a first peek at the Caterpillar, who will be played Alan Rickman, perched atop a giant mushroom with hookah in hand.
The spread was followed up this week by a staggered release of new posters for the movie via the Facebook page for The Disloyal Subjects of the Mad Hatter. All have been nicely teased by the Hatter, who is demanding increasing thousands of "likes" for each new peek.
First up is a gorgeous character composite dominated by the imperious Red Queen. After a bit of a delay and 7000 "likes" later, the Hatter deigned to let out a second poster featuring Alice and the White Rabbit amid a psychedelic landscape of tea party, flowers with human faces, and a mysterious door to nowhere. Ever more demanding, the Hatter has now ordered his following to offer up 9000 more "likes" before he releases the final poster. It took a while to fill the last mad order, so if you are anxious to see the final poster in this series, you had better head on over to Facebook and give him what he wants.
Posted 11/11/2009 by Bill
Related: Alan Rickman | Tim Burton | Alice in Wonderland
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Monday, October 12
Michael Sheen is strapping on some big ears for his role as the White Rabbit in Tim Burton's gothic adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. To get it right, he's had go a bit down the rabbit hole himself, as he explained to Parade:
Everyone has an inner white fluffy animal, it's just a question of finding it before it's too late. The White Rabbit is such an iconic character that I didn't feel like I should break the mould too much, so I just sort of went with it. The story had a huge impact on me as a child and it's stayed with me ever since, so to be part of Tim Burton's version is just like a dream come true.
Given that it's Burton's vision, we shouldn't expect things to get too fluffy and cuddly, though. A number of the characters we've seen so far in the teasers don't seem like they have anything too fluffy inside. Certainly not Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter in any case.
Posted 10/12/2009 by Bill
Related: Johnny Depp | Tim Burton | Alice in Wonderland | Michael Sheen
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Tuesday, August 4
Despite all the applause that his sneak peek drew at Comic-Con, Tim Burton is still nervous about Alice in Wonderland, reports the LA Times. Dealing with such a complex cocktail of special effects for the first time is driving him as mad as ... well, let's just say he's finding the experience extremely frustrating. As a result, Burton worries that he may be facing a potential logjam of visual effects work right up until the movie debuts in March 2010.
Burton has also set himself the daunting task of assembling an original collage of material drawn from the full range of Lewis Carroll's Alice works. A lot of the vibe he's aiming for in his adaptation of Alice, he says, was drawn from Jabberwocky, a hauntingly surreal poem constructed largely out of words that Carroll just made up. On top of that, he is putting together a complex inner life for his characters. Alice, he tells the Times, will evolve from an a wide-eyed and naive young girl into an empowered action heroine who sports her very own suit of armor — not something you'll find in any of Carroll's works.
Posted 8/4/2009 by Bill
Related: Tim Burton | Alice in Wonderland
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Monday, July 27
The path down the rabbit hole popped up on Twitter this weekend, as Disney tweeted an invite to the secret location of the Mad Hatter's tea party. Those who spotted the invite and followed the directions found a colorful array of props and images from Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland at an undisclosed location in San Diego.
On exhibit were surrealistically distorted doors, fresh-faced flowers, and the Hatter's tea table itself, all set up with place markers for some rather eccentric guests. Empire caught the tour and offers a cool video of the experience set to to some appropriately trippy music.
Posted 7/27/2009 by Bill
Related: Tim Burton | Alice in Wonderland
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Thursday, July 23
One of Thursday's most anticipated events at Comic-Con was the Disney: 3D Panel. The panel didn't disappoint, either, with Robert Zemeckis kicking things off by speaking about 3-D movies as the wave of the future, though not necessarily right for all movies. The main focus of his talk was on his upcoming re-imagining of A Christmas Tale, which is a decidedly eerie take on the classic novel. The clips he showed definitely upped the creepiness factor in Zemeckis' attempt to reach the surreal tone of the book. He also revealed that Jim Carrey will be playing eight roles in the movie, though why Zemeckis would want that is still unclear.
Despite a little wind being kicked out of his sails, Tim Burton's part of the panel was still the highlight. Although the clip he showed was leaked earlier, it still made quite an impression. Plus, Burton still had a surprise up his sleeves, and brought out his friend Johnny Depp, who plays the Mad Hatter in Burton's upcoming adaptation of Alice in Wonderland.
Last up was the Tron panel, which showed footage from last year in 3-D as well as new clips that weren't yet converted. No new details about the plot or technology that's being used to create the movie were offered, but it was officially titled Tron Legacy and the original Tron's creator, Steven Lisberger, joined Jeff Bridges and director Joseph Kosinski onstage.
We'll have videos from this event and others posted shortly, so stick around.
Posted 7/23/2009 by reelz
Related: Johnny Depp | Robert Zemeckis | Steven Lisberger | Tim Burton | Alice in Wonderland | Tron: Legacy | A Christmas Carol
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Anticipation is building around Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. Rumours have been circulating that Comic-Con would offer with it some new treats for fans, since Burton himself is there, and apparently those rumours were correct.
Well, almost correct. The teaser trailer was set for Comic-Con, but was leaked to the internet a day early. Since then, Disney has been trying to close up the leak, but many sites still have the footage online. This one, for instance.
We can't guarantee how long the trailer will stay up there, but those who are lucky enough to catch a glimpse will probably be bowled over by the footage. In a nutshell, it's utterly gorgeous, even for Burton, and shows off new footage of the the Cheshire Cat and Tweedledee and Tweedledum. If the rest of the movie looks this good, Alice in Wonderland could be Burton's best-looking feature yet — no easy feat.
Not only that, but the trailer also drops another bomb: Alice in Wonderland will be in 3-D!
Posted 7/23/2009 by reelz
Related: Helena Bonham Carter | Johnny Depp | Tim Burton | Alice in Wonderland | Mia Wasikowski
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Monday, July 20
In an interview with MTV, Alice in Wonderland director Tim Burton explains why he chose to update his version of the classic fantasy story — earlier adaptations of the story were too disjointed and episodic, he'd concluded. So in his version, Alice (Mia Wasikowska), now 17, is revisiting a Wonderland that she has forgotten:
We tried to take the Alice mythology and characters and make a story out of it and be true to the spirit of what Alice is about. The other versions for me suffer because there's no movement to it. It's just one weird event after another. We're trying to ground it a little a bit.
As a result, the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) is going to play a bigger role:
With him, we are always trying to find a subtext and layer to it, so it's rooted in humanity to some degree — something deeper than just being nuts.
And it's not just a complex plot Burton has to assemble. Working with a mix of animation, live-action, and motion-capture has proved to be a "mysterious puzzle that's frightening and exciting at the same time." So, what he has to show this Thursday at Comic Con will not involve a lot of footage. It will be a kind of "semi-trailer." If it comes anywhere close to the promise of the pictures and concept art that have been released so far though, it will be well worth watching.
Posted 7/20/2009 by Bill
Related: Johnny Depp | Tim Burton | Alice in Wonderland | Mia Wasikowska
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Tuesday, July 7
All sorts of new images from Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland have been appaering lately. Following up on the character posters and amazing concept art that showed up the other day, we now have some full-length character photos of Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen, and Mia Wasikowska as Alice. Each is posing with an animal: Alice, of course, with a white rabbit, the Red Queen with a baby pig, and the Mad Hatter with another rabbit.
Transitions between the human and animal worlds play a major role in the original Alice books, and this seems to be a signal that the movie will follow suit. Juxtapositions of size and proportion are also key to the magic of the original and some concept art for the movie featuring Alice among giant mushrooms suggests that this is central to Burton's vision of Wonderland as well.
Posted 7/7/2009 by Bill
Related: Helena Bonham Carter | Johnny Depp | Tim Burton | Alice in Wonderland | Mia Wasikowska
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Monday, June 22
USA Today goes down the rabbit hole with Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland and comes back up with some amazing pieces of eye candy. Alice, played by the Australian actress Mia Wasikowska, is glimpsed wandering in a garden populated by towering mushrooms and flowers with human faces, not to mention being checked out amid some surreal topiary by The White Rabbit. We also get a look the rather disturbing-looking twins, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, who resemble giant bloated versions of Pugsly from The Addams Family.
To go along with all this, the studio has also released some appropriately surreal promo photos of Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham Carter as The Red Queen, and Anne Hathaway as The White Queen. The latter two characters are actually drawn from the Wonderland sequel, Through the Looking Glass, so clearly Burton is aiming to give the Lewis Carroll classic his own unique spin.
The USA Today article drops some hints about the direction of these changes, noting that Burton's version features a more grown-up Alice, who begins her adventures by escaping from a snooty Victorian dinner party only to fall back into Wonderland. She had been there once before but for some reason doesn't remember a thing about it.
Posted 6/22/2009 by Bill
Related: Anne Hathaway | Helena Bonham Carter | Johnny Depp | Tim Burton | Alice in Wonderland | Mia Wasikowska
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Wednesday, December 10
A big-screen adaptation of the cult 1960s gothic soap opera Dark Shadows will be the next project for Tim Burton after Alice in Wonderland confirms producer Richard D. Zanuck in an interview with Collider. The groundbreaking series featured all manner of supernatural creatures from vampires and werewolves to witches and zombies and beyond over the course of its 1,225 episodes, so there is no doubt that there is plenty of material to work with here. In Burton's adaptation, go-to guy Johnny Depp is slated to play the lead role as vampire patriarch Barnabas Collins. So it appears that Depp, who has confessed that as a child he was so obsessed with the show that he wanted to be Barnabas Collins, may finally get his wish.
See also: A look at Tim Burton's strange fascination with Kabuki Johnny Depp.
Posted 12/10/2008 by reelz
Related: Johnny Depp | Tim Burton | Dark Shadows | Alice in Wonderland