Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland : Official Teaser

And once again, another long wait begins

Johnny Is Mad

Here is the first photo released of Johnny Depp as The Mad Hatter in Tim Burton's revisualization of Alice In Wonderland.

Alice In Wonderland started filming in Cornwall earlier this autumn, with a relative unknown taking the lead role as fantasiser Alice.
Mia Wasikowska, 18, from Canberra, Australia, will be playing Alice, alongside Anne Hathaway as the White Queen.
Burton has also cast his real-life partner Helena Bonham Carter as the moody Red Queen.
The director frequently works with Carter in his movies, having cast her in Charlie And The Chocolate Factory (which also starred Depp), Big Fish and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street.
Matt Lucas and David Walliams, the stars of television show Little Britain, have been cast as Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee.
The Queen star Michael Sheen (Tony Blair) will play the Cheshire Cat, while Back To The Future star Crispin Glover (George McFly) will play the knaves of hearts

From MailOnline

Burton Talks Alice

Here's an interview that Tim Burton did with Geoff Boucher of the LA Times recently.

With "Alice in Wonderland," the defining pop-culture version of the story for modern American audiences is the 1954 Disney animated adaptation with its little blond Alice in her blue dress with white pinafore. That film was met with acidic reviews by the literary world (especially in England) for its bland and blunted vision of the Carroll classic. Burton is not a fan of the film, either, and, as with "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," it appears his mission is to reclaim a children's classic, resharpen its edges and remind everyone that sapping the weirdness out of a tale often renders it flat and forgettable.

"It's a funny project. The story is obviously a classic with iconic images and ideas and thoughts. But with all the movie versions, well, I've just never seen one that really had any impact to me. It's always just a series of weird events. Every character is strange and she's just kind of wandering through all of the encounters as just a sort of observer. The goal is to try to make it an engaging movie where you get some of the psychology and kind of bring a freshness but also keep the classic nature of 'Alice.' And, you know, getting to do it in 3-D fits the material quite well. So I'm excited about making it a new version but also have the elements that people expect when they think of the material."

I told Burton he's right, the Disney movie is a meandering tour of a funhouse without any gripping story arc. "Yeah, I know, it's just, 'Oh, this character's weird' and 'Oh, that character's weird.' I can't really recall a version where I felt really engaged by it. So that's the goal, just to try to give it a gravity that most film versions haven't had."

Check out more of the interview here where there is even mention of a Burton / Depp version of the classic vampire soap-opera Dark Shadows.

Burton Is About To Enter Dangerous Territory

With the buzz surrounding Tim Burton's newest film - Alice In Wonderland - the focus is now turning to the supporting cast.

October 7, 2008 - Anne Hathaway (Get Smart) and Helena Bonham Carter (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) have joined the cast of director Tim Burton's live-action and performance-capture retelling of Alice in Wonderland.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, "Hathaway is playing the White Queen, a benevolent monarch who is deposed and banished by her sister, the Red Queen (Carter), who has an affinity for crying out, 'Off with their heads!' The White Queen needs Alice to slay a creature known as the Bandersnatch."

Bonham Carter -- Burton's off-screen squeeze -- has appeared in his films Sweeney Todd, Corpse Bride, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Big Fish and Planet of the Apes.

Yes, of course Johnny Depp is going to be in this.

While Burton and Depp have had a very close relationship in film for many years, this film poses a unique threat for both men.

Considering "Alice" is a classic of fantasy storytelling, one has to wonder how Burton's vision will turn out.

While venom has dripped from many theatre-goers in relation to his remake of "Willie Wonka" and "Planet Of The Apes" - rightfully so for the later - his film version of "Sweeny Todd" did prove that Burton still has it when it comes to darker material. Will he slightly tweak Alice's already moody landscapes, bizarre charcters, and lucid-dream pacing into something fresh? It's hard to say.

Burton is not the first person to revision the many characters of Wonderland. Does anyone remember the "Alice" game for PC from America McGee?

American McGee is best known for his work on shooters like Quake III, but he split off from id Software recently and his first effort is Alice, a twisted romp through his own version of Lewis Carroll's Wonderland. The trick is that Alice, now older, is the lone survivor of a house fire that kills her family. She's stuck in an asylum and must regain her own sanity by returning to the madcap Wonderland she visited as a child. She's a darker person now, and, perhaps consequently, Wonderland is correspondingly dark.
The Queen of Hearts cruelly rules the land, the White Rabbit is tattered, the Cheshire Cat sports a pirate earring and a mangy, emaciated look, and the Mad Hatter is even madder than before. Alice, armed with her characteristic politeness, athletic ability, and a large knife, must venture through this dark Wonderland righting wrongs while thwarting the Queen and her army of playing-card guards.

One is left to wonder why American McGee hadn't been approached by a film studio. Did Burton "steal" this idea? Are they going to be simular?

We'll just have to wait and see.