Tim Burton recreates ‘Alice in Wonderland’

Oh yeah, Tim Burton strikes again with his uncoming recreation of “Alice in Wonderland.” I can’t wait to see it, but I’m also a little afraid to venture into his twisted version of Wonderland.

According to USAToday, “The traditional tale has been freshened with a blast of girl power, courtesy of writer Linda Woolverton (Beauty and the Beast). Alice, 17, attends a party at a Victorian estate only to find she is about to be proposed to in front of hundreds of snooty society types. Off she runs, following a white rabbit into a hole and ending up in Wonderland, a place she visited 10 years before yet doesn’t remember.”

Johnny Depp welcomes Alice back to wonderland in his role as the Mad Hatter, his seventh collaboration with Burton. If you thought he was wacky as Willie Wonka, my guess is he’ll be truly out of his head as the Mad Hatter.

Burton’s real-life wife Helena Bonham Carter will appear as the Red Queen; as the result of her favorite slogan “Off with their heads!” her moat is filled with bobbing noggins. Anne Hathaway creates an ethereal and ghostly white queen. The star role of Alice is 19-year-old Australian actress Mia Wasikowska.

Scheduled to arrive in movie theaters on March 5, 2010, the film also features Alan Rickman as Caterpillar, and Christopher Lee as the fierce Jabberwock (Do you know the poem by Lewis Carroll?). Michael Sheen as the White Rabbit, Matt Lucas as Tweedledee and -dum, Crispin Glover as the Knave of Hearts, and Stephen Fry as the Cheshire Cat fill out the imaginative cast.

“We finished shooting in December after only 40 days,” producer Richard Zanuck says in an interview with USA Today. The live action is currently being merged with computer animation and motion-capture creatures, and will then be transferred into 3-D. When it arrives in theaters, viewers can choose to watch a conventional version, or completely surround themselves in IMAX 3D.

Woah. I can’t wait to see it. (And between now and then, I might have nightmares about these dark and creepy imaginative characters.) For now, Burton/Depp fans can immerse themselves in a first look at the concept drawings here at USA Today, or view the character studies of the Mad Hatter, White Queen, Red Queen, Alice, and others here at comingsoon.net

These publicity images will begin arriving in movie theatres this week to start creating buzz for the Disney film. Click on any of them to view an enlargement.

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