Tim Burton to direct Alice in Wonderland

Tim Burton's directing a film adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. Alice is the first book I ever read to myself and I've never fallen out of love with it. The Burton adaptation will feature live action and animation -- though it probably won't be half as weird as this Czech surrealist adaptation featuring taxidermied animal skeletons in stop-motion animation.

Burton will also produce the adaptation, which will use both live action and performance-capture animation.
"The stories are like drugs for children, you know?" Burton said. "It's like, 'Whoa, man.' The imagery, they've never quite nailed making it compelling as a full story. So I think it's an interesting challenge to direct."
Filming on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is set to begin in early 2008. Burton will work from a script by Linda Woolverton (Beauty and the Beast)

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I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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erindipity

Ahh, this is the stuff!
fredrik

Some people love Tideland, but it is not for everybody. What is great about it is that Terry totally got his way with it, in contrast to Brothers Grimm, which sucked coz of producer interference.
Clifton

Jan Svankmajer’s Alice was pretty awesome, but I like his Faust better. Say, can we have a Tim Burton version of Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus? That would be just luscious.
Garbanzo

Coming soon to Hot Topic: More Alice merch than you can shake a stick at!
thecat17

A third Alice film is set to be filmed next year: Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll.

Directed by Marilyn Manson, whom will also be playing the part of Mr. Carroll. Apparently, Angelina Jolie will be playing the Red Queen.

What’s real interesting to me is Manson’s insistance that he’s going to use subliminal elements in the film “that may end up being illegal.”

And also, “the girls playing Tweedledum and Tweedledee are twins who get to have real, genuine sex with each other.”
BIZKeT

Dear Santa,
Please don’t let Tim Burton screw up Alice in Wonderland like he did Charley and the Chocolate Factory.

Also, I want a pony that transforms into a clockwork panda.

Your best pal,
BIZKeT
teknokracy

Can Tim Burton make a movie without Johnny Depp for once? Please? *crosses fingers*
A New Challenger

Hmm, who will Paul Reubens play? The Mad Hatter? That would probably fit.
Absent

I think Helen Bonham-Carter’s a tad too old to play Alice.
Dave Rattigan

I’m sure Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter will welcome the extra work. (Mad Hatter and Queen of Hearts, anyone?)
acb

Will it be based on American McGee’s gothed-up Alice video-game?
Chang

NO ROOM!!! NO ROOM!!!
NO ROOM!!!
DoorFrame

ACB: I was going to say that I wish it were based on American McGee’s Alice. They started that one time (starring Sarah Michelle Gellar!) and gave up. The story and tone are dead on for Burton’s sensibilities.
charliekkendo

Terry Gilliam would be awesome, yes!
sasquatch

performance-capture?!?!

Tim, what happened to you? You used to be good (at least visually). What happened did you drink the Kool-Aid that Zemeckis offered you? Did you forget your animation roots? How does someone go fromVincent to motion-capture??
License Farm

Doorframe: The story and tone of the McGee Alice are dead on ripoffs of Burton’s sensibilities, much like the bulk of commercialized goth culture (read: Hot Topic).

I wish Burton would go back to tapping into his own muse rather than servicing others’ trademarks. Other than Batman and perhaps Mars Attacks his most successful films, at least artistically, have been born out of his idiosynchratic view of the world (ie, Beetlejuice, Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Edward Scissorhands, Big Fish, et al).
Brian Damage

Cory, if you haven’t got it already I bet you’d enjoy The Annotated Alice which my parents bought for me a few birthdays ago.

http://www.amazon.com/Annotated-Alice-Definitive-Lewis-Carroll/dp/0393048470/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1197375202&sr=8-2

It explains all those 18th century lolrus and the lolpenter jokes where “you had to be there”.
megg

we seem to be in an era of Alice revival. In 2008 Sarah Michelle “Buffy” Gellar will star in a live-action Alice based on the “American McGee’s Alice” video game.
kblock

If Alan Rickman is not the caterpillar, then they have made a mistake.
Stefan Jones

I find myself totally uninspired by this news.

Not because Burton is involved. Because I think Alice is getting to be a total yawn. The century-before-last’s idea of whimsy and cheeky satire.

I’d love to see Burton take on an adaption of a graphic novel. Something NEW gardamnit.
License Farm

@StPete420: Burton REVIVED Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by staying true to Dahl’s version of the book.

This is likely a rhetorical question given your handle, but are you high? There was no subplot with Wonka’s father in the book. Burton excised the subplot with Slugworth, which removed any real reason for Charlie to not immediately get the factory, yet kept in Wonka’s paranoia of spies, rendered pointless. And Wonka, though an eccentric, was not a delusional pedophobe. And I never said I didn’t like Burton’s rendition, but the Gene Wilder version is far superior; even my nephew thought so, without coaching.

@TheCat17: “the girls playing Tweedledum and Tweedledee are twins who get to have real, genuine sex with each other.”

Ah, but will they eat each other’s scat out of a cup and vomit all over one another? Gotta ride that zeitgeist.
The Masked Yodeler

It will never top the 1976 porn musical version of Alice in Wonderland.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074113/
TheMoonBoreYou

OKAY!

Tim Burton Is A GOD! People Are Saying He’s Changed Since Vincent, But Haven’t All Directors?
Jeez, Vincent Was Like 15 Years Ago, Even If It Is AMAZING! And I Can’t Wait To See This Rendetion Of Alice, And NO Helena IS NOT OLD AT ALL! God, And I Can’t Wait To See Matt Lucas (little Britain/usa) Do The Twins :)Yeah, I Think Alan Rickman Would Be Great For The Caterpillar, And Johnny Would Suit The Mad Hatter More Than The Rabbit, The Rabbit Should Be … I DON’T KNOW! :P
Well All I’m Wondering Is Tim Following The Book? Or Former Movies He Enjoyed Of It? Therefore WHO WILL BE THE QUEEN?!

Anyway, I Think Tim Deserves A Break After This … I’d Really Like To See Him Make Abarat (By Clive Barker) Because Besides The Twilight Saga It’s My Favourite Colllection Of Books. Perhaps Tim Should Try A Film Without Depp, Hows About Richard E. Grant? He Was Lord Barkis In Corpse Bride So I Think Theres A Possibility?
x
dannysland

The phrase “It’s like, ‘Whoa, man.’” really sums up why Burton is the right man to do justice to a book full of clever wordplay.
metrognome0

long overdue…this is right up his alley.

by the way, anyone interested in a creative take on the Alice in Wonderland should check out “Fur” (with Nicole Kidman and Robert Downy Jr).
Bren

Is there someone new? Or old? Post Burton, post Jackson, Pre … videogamey – blockbustery – schlocky that could do right by this work?

S.S-berg I do not trust to do it properly. (Yes, I am still mad about The Color Purple, and will never forgive him.) and he doesn’t do deeeep well. I’d hate to see this as a YA action adventure dumbed down.
charliekkendo

I, too, love Alice but have the same misgivings of a film version as those expressed here.

By the way, anyone interested in the new trend in Lewis Carroll scholarship? Shoot, where was that web site…

Here we go.

http://www.lewiscarroll.cc/

Basically, most scholars of Carroll’s personal life have assumed he was a repressed pedophile who never acted on his impulses. But a small body of scholars believes this is a myth that has self-perpetuated and that Carroll was, in fact, quite normal sexually, and that his odd (to us) behaviors can be lumped under the banner of the Victorian cult of the child. Doesn’t help that Carroll’s extensive journaling and correspondence is missing a year’s worth of documentation that was destroyed for reasons unknown after his death.
Anonymous

Tim Burton is one of the best directors of our time and I enjoy all of his movies. It’s really upsetting to read such negative feedback on a lot of his films. He has had a revolutionary affect on many movies that are being made by new and upcoming directors and he is the inspiration of so many people. I also can’t believe there are so many people who don’t like Johnny Depp hes so amazing! Helena Bonham carter is very talented as well and they both bring their A games to the table and its not really a bad thing when a director becomes familiar and friends with the actors and likes to cast them in their movies I mean does everyone hate when Paul Rudd and Will Farrel have the same cast members because they enjoy acting with them and the overall film is better because they were together in it. The same thing with Adam Sandler and his crew.
katelaity

I’ve always liked Jonathan Miller’s 1966 version of Alice (maybe because it features Peter Cook, a host of other luminaries and the music of Ravi Shankar), but Svankmajer’s is magical, too. There’s nothing like these two films to forever warp a bunch of freshman ed majors. How they howl when the mouse starts a fire on Alice’s head!

As for book recommendations, check out Brian Talbot’s Alice in Sunderland, a real feast for the eyes that challenges Oxford’s “ownership” of Alice.

I’m cautiously hopeful about Sweeney Todd, but I fear Burton will spend six months teaching the flamingos to make themselves rigid, then rush the rest of the production.
segmentation fault

how about it in russian:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=0y5FJyHHqv4

this version was awesome, despite not being able to udnerstand it.
Nelson.C

Charlie @15: Meh, it’s not as though there haven’t been a whole bunch of film adaptations already; check IMDb’s list, of which I’ve seen a fraction. I don’t think it’s a particularly easy book to film, really. If Burton only manages a version somewhere in conceptual space between the Disney animation and Jonathan Miller’s production he’ll have done well.
charliekkendo

Good point, Nelson. I was a big fan of the Disney version as a kid.
mike3k

Hopefully the soundtrack will include “White Rabbit”.
mr_tumnus001

I WANT JEFFERSON AIRPLANE’S “WHITE RABBIT” AS THE THEME SONG!!!!!!!!
(pwetty pwease????)
fredrik

@nabru, @charliekendo:

Terry Gilliam recently did his very own, psycho-ish interpretetation of Alice in Wonderland:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0410764/
metapede

Is this supposed to be good news? His Roald Dahl adaptations were awful. I don’t imagine his Alice will be any better.
Anonymous

I WANT JEFFERSON AIRPLANE’S “WHITE RABBIT” AS THE THEME SONG!!!!!!!!
(pwetty pwease????)
techiepage

Can Tim Burton make a movie without Johnny Depp for once? Please? *crosses fingers*
charliekkendo

Spielberg’s been off his game for years, IMO. Always ends his movies with these tacked on, forced happy endings. Just my opinion.

This Tideland looks great!

http://www.tidelandthemovie.com/main.html
thecat17

If Collide’s version of White Rabbit isn’t on any of these Alice films, I’m going to die a little inside.
noahpoah

Svankmajer also has an amazing movie called Little Otik that doesn’t appear on his site. It’s based on a Czech fold tale, and it’s truly demented.

Oh, and I hope Burton doesn’t screw Alice up.
mellowknees

All I want to know is: Will Johnny Depp play the White Rabbit, or the Mad Hatter?
flickersticks

Anyone have any idea where this film is to be produced? My first guess is Laika in Portland…for some reason?
nabru

Thank you fredrik. I’ve wanted to see Tideland but I was told it wasn’t very good.
stpete420

My gosh what an opinionated group! Burton REVIVED Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by staying true to Dahl’s version of the book. Johnny Depp was fantastic and those two have been an incredible duo since the beginning days of Edward Scissorhands. I guess most of you can certainly do much better and are just sitting on multi-million dollar deals waiting for the one that lets you express your true “creative” genius. At least Burton can utilize technology that allows him to tell a great story without appearing over the top. Besides, I am sure Burton is not losing a wink of sleep over some of your “recommendations”.

And Gilliam? Those must be the 3 or 4 die-hard fans that think he could rewrite the Bible and make it a better story with a funkier ending.

All this talk is making me hungry. I am going home to get some herbal relief and watch Charlie back to back for the next 6 hours. That’ll satisfy my cravings.
Anonymous

Shooting of Tim Burtonâ€™s twisted version of Disneyâ€™s â€œAlice in Wonderlandâ€ has officially begun with the full, set cast finally at hand. Alongside Johnny Depp, the lovely, young, Australian actress Mia Wasikowska will be portraying the main role

http://www.bloginity.com/archives/1119
nabru

Woooo.. The Bible Directed and Written by Gilliam.. I like it..

You know Rob Zombie might be a better choice than Burton too. I’m sure he could create a very different Alice in Wonderland. :D
nabru

Terry Gilliam would have been a better choice.

:(
deusdiabolus

Regarding the film adaptation of American McGee’s ALICE…it’s still in the works. There was a rumor that Sarah Michelle Gellar had been replaced by Maggie Grace last week, but this was disproven by an inside source.

And I like most of Burton’s work, but the American McGee film version is the Alice I’m waiting to see. Especially if Marcus Nispel stays fairly faithful to the game’s tone.