From Down Under to ‘Wonderland’
Until tonight’s announcement that Australian actress Mia Wasikowska was on the verge of being cast as Alice in Tim Burton’s version of Alice in Wonderland, I hadn’t given much thought to the project. Now I have and I think I like it.
It’s already got a story that Burton will have to stick to and that’s often where he stumbles in his weaker films.
Currently slated for March 2010, the 3-D film will mix live-action footage with the performance capture technique used in films like Beowulf. Linda Woolverton (The Lion King) wrote the screenplay.
The 18-year-old Wasikowska can currently be seen in HBO’s In Treatment (Thanks, K!)
Source: THR via ComingSoon.net
Filed under: News, Upcoming
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Pssst… It’s In Treatment, not The Treatment.
I’m way too excited for this film. If anyone can tell Alice in Wonderland right, it’s Tim Burton.
“If anyone can tell Alice in Wonderland right, it’s Tim Burton.”
I agree.
Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter? Helena Bonham Carter as the Queen of Hearts?
Though I think Glenn Close would be a great Queen of Hearts.
As someone who was addicted to In Treatment while it ran, I can tell you, this young lady has presence.
She most certainly does Chuck.
I’d expect (and hope!) to see Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter appear in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland.
Personally, I would like to see Burton branch out a bit in terms of casting, as Alex’s idea of Glenn Close as the “Queen of Hearts” is awesome.
Thanks, K! What do I know? I don’t have cable.
It’s already got a story that Burton will have to stick to and that’s often where he stumbles in his weaker films.
True. But keep in mind that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory had a story that he had to stick to and he managed to add his own backstory to it which added a real lame factor to a film that had the potential to be excellent.
Just saying.
And I have to agree with Nick on the casting. It would be nice to see Burton branch out and work with other actors. And it would be great to see Depp and Carter working with other directors, especially Carter who has done very little lately with anyone other than Burton. She’s a fabulous screen actress and her talent should be utilized to a greater degree.
I’m too far away from both the book and the Burton version to recall Alison, but Charlie felt like a near miss to me, one I’d like to see again.
Thanks, Nick. I’ve often thought that, for some reason–if there was ever an Alice in Wonderland film made, I’d like to see Glenn Close as the Queen of Hearts.
I had a lot of problems with Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Some of it was certainly the unnecessary backstory that Alison writes about, but a good deal of it was also because it felt like it went on and on without much story to tell. The original had a much better sense of pacing.
Also the original had Gene Wilder as Wonka. He was perfect for the role in every way, right down to the twinkle in his eye that Dahl describes in his book.
Gene Wilder makes everything better, whether it’s Bonnie and Clyde or Haunted Honeymoon. Eh, Alison? :)
Eh, I don’t think anything could make Haunted Honeymoon better, but he certainly added his own comic dimension to Bonnie and Clyde. And don’t get me started raving over Young Frankenstein, still Mel Brooks’ best film in my opinion, with the original The Producers in a close second.
Wilder is good enough that he made the 80 or so minutes of Haunted Honeymoon not crawl like they almost surely would have without anyone else. It’s a case of what should have been a pretty bad movie being at least partly saved by its lead actor.
His work for Brooks is indeed golden.
I chuckle whenever I think of Young Frankenstein.
Though it’s not my favorite, Gene was also pretty great in Blazing Saddles.
I agree, Craig, he was great in Blazing Saddles. I just love Young Frankenstein.
Alexander, I have to agree with you on Glenn Close for the Queen of Hearts, too. She’d be awesome. Disney’s live-action remake of its own 101 Dalmatians was not worth the effort but she was a fabulous Cruella DeVille.
Very true, Alison, I agree. She’s just a terrific, and sadly underused, actress.
Well, if UK’s “The Sun” is to be believed, it looks like Depp will be playing The Mad Hatter in this movie. I’m sure news of HBC playing the Queen of Hearts will follow shortly.
So much for Burton thinking out of the box with casting.
You kinda knew it, didn’t you?
We all knew it, of course. Still, one can always hope…
Yeah, it was obvious.
I have to say, I’m still looking forward to this one.
Can I be the minority opinion here? I mean, not that I don’t like Gene Wilder (how can you not?) but I don’t like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory that much. Maybe because the book was one of my favorite, I’d read it about ten times when I saw the movie, and well… it was so different from what I’d imagined, not just in plot but also in tone, that I was sorely disappointed. Burton’s version did the book more justice… but I’m the first to acknowledge that the added back story doesn’t work (Lee’s great though, isn’t he?)
Hedwig, I don’t like the first Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory much either. Even as a kid I was disappointed with it. I had read the book so many times and I loved it; I knew every bit of it by heart. But I didn’t care for Burton’s version either. I’m a fan of the book first and last and didn’t have much use for either movie version. Neither came close to how I imagined the story when reading it - it’s very difficult for any film to accomplish that.
Much of the dialogue in Burton’s was straight out of the book. But other than that I’m not sure that he did it much more justice. Christopher Lee is always wonderful, but the backstory was completely unnecessary and had absolutely nothing to do with the book. And as I’ve mentioned before this is the one Depp performance that I found truly disappointing.