Alice In Wonderland

[MacGuffin]

Why Johnny Depp worried about being fired from Alice in Wonderland
Source: SciFi Wire

Johnny Depp made a dramatic switch to play the Mad Hatter in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland after starring in this summer's historical crime drama Public Enemies, in which he played real-life gangster John Dillinger.

"The Hatter was awfully fun," Depp said in a news conference on Monday in Beverly Hills, Calif. "After doing something like John Dillinger, a performance where it's somewhat restrained because of the responsibility you have to that guy and his memory, that Mad Hatter was like being fired out of a cannon. The Hatter was great fun, and, again, it's one of those things that you're just amazed you weren't fired. I truly am."

Depp plays the Mad Hatter in Burton's vision of the Lewis Carroll tale. Combining practical costumes, motion capture and 3-D computer animation, Burton is adding new levels to an aesthetic that already bears his name, "Burton-esque." USA Today published photos of the characters, including Depp's Hatter.

With orange frizzy curls, pasty porcelain makeup, a frilly black top hat and goth-y circus touches, the Hatter looks exactly as Depp said he intended. "All I've seen, I've just seen the little bits and pieces of it, but, yeah, what I ended up looking like is how I thought he was going to look, how I thought he should look, which was one of the first reasons why I'm surprised I didn't get fired," Depp said.

It's not the first time Depp expressed surprise at keeping a job: He also thought he'd be fired from the first Pirates of the Caribbean film because of studio disagreements with his portrayal of Jack Sparrow.

Alice in Wonderland is due in theaters March 5, 2010. The film also stars Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman and newcomer Mia Wasikowska as Alice.

[samsong]

tweedle dee and tweedle dum look hilarious.

then there's this, which actually makes me want to see it:

[The Perineum Falcon]

yes, that looks wonderful. my main concern is that the cgi elements won't be terribly distracting.

that is beautiful, though.

[SiliasRuby]

This is going to be my favorite movie of '09

[Pwaybloe]

I doubt it.

[MacGuffin]

EXCLUSIVE: Tim Burton To Present 'Semi-Trailer' For 'Alice In Wonderland' At Comic-Con
Source: MTV

Yesterday we told you that Tim Burton will be heading to Comic-Con next week—for the first time in over thirty years!—to show off new footage of the post-apocalyptic animated film that he produced, "9." Burton is also bringing footage from his 3-D adaptation of "Alice in Wonderland"—which has never been shown in public!—and today MTV News can reveal that the footage in question will be a "semi-trailer."

A what? Allow the man himself to explain.

"[It's] a kind of a semi-trailer," Burton said. "It's where we're at at the moment. There's not a lot of footage to show."

The reason is that the technological challenges of blurring the lines between live-action, motion-capture and animation have proved to be massive. "It's a strange process we're dealing with," he explained. "We're using a mix of techniques. If you picked them apart, each technique has been done before. We're mixing them up, in a way."

"I wish we had more footage to show," Burton added. "It's a real mysterious puzzle that's frightening and exciting at the same time."

The "Alice" presentation will be part of Disney's 3-D panel on Thursday, July 23, which also includes Robert Zemeckis' "A Christmas Carol" and the sequel to the 1982 sci-fi classic, "Tron." In addition to the semi-trailer Burton will be showing off, you'll surely hear the director discuss his vision for the adaptation, how he and star Johnny Depp conceived their take on the Mad Hatter, and why previous versions of "Alice" have fallen short.

Lucky for you folks not making the trip to San Diego, Burton gave us the inside word. "The thing about it is it's a series of stories," he said. "For me that's always been a problem with the movie versions of it. It's always been a girl going from one weird adventure to another, and for me it didn't have much of an impact in the versions I'd seen before. Everyone's crazy. 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."

Burton also faulted past imaginings of the Hatter. "When you look at most interpretations, everything is pretty one-note," he said. "Everybody is crazy. 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."

For those who don't know, Burton's "Alice" is being planned as a sort of sequel (our term, not theirs) to the story presented in Lewis Carroll's original works. Alice, now 17, follows the White Rabbit away from a high society party, once again landing herself in Wonderland. Only this is a changed Wonderland, a place now ruled over by the evil Red Queen. And since Alice can't remember her last visit, she'll have some hurdles to overcome before she can help her old friends reclaim their world.

So how is Burton feeling about his first trip to the Con since a harrowing experience at the "Superman" panel in the late '70s? "The great thing about it is the people are passionate and that's what you want," he said. "That's why you do what you do."

[MacGuffin]

Teaser Trailer here.

EDIT: New link

[Stefen]

I just watched it but didn't have sound. Looks creepy as fuck. YES.

[SiliasRuby]

Yes!!!!!!

[tpfkabi]

Teaser Trailer

already gone.
=(



this must be it.

[picolas]

PSSST.

*same qual as youtube which was already nearly unbearably low.

[matt35mm]

Cheeky

[for petes sake]

this looks terrible.

[Gold Trumpet]

The worry is the heavy CGI look. Use of it has become so heavy handed in movies that it's become an uninspired version of animation. No longer is it just a compliment to difficult action sequences and fantastic scenarios. CGI is now the equivalent of plastic surgery in movies: originally meant to make things look better, but in reality just makes everything look like what it is, CGI. The hopeful part about this movie is that Tim Burton is a much better director now than in the 1980s so the movie may be efficient, but I wonder if a Where the Wild Things direction for realism would have been better. Only time will tell.

[modage]

not into it.