I hate being in a position where I have to eat my words, but I’ll chow down like Herzog on leather when it’s called for. After dismissing Tim Burton as a hamster on a treadmill for the past decade, Sweeney Todd has forced me to admit that he’s got energy left to burn. His work with this season’s least family-friendly movie has me a lot more interested in Burton’s upcoming adaptation of Alice In Wonderland, which he promises will be faithful to Lewis Carrol’s text.
"I’ve never seen a version where I feel like they got it all. It’s a series of weird adventures, and to try to do it where it works as a movie will be interesting," he told Sci-Fi Wire (and probably a dozen other outlets) during Sweeney Todd promotions.
The film will use a mix of live action and performance capture (PeCap? Pocap?) to create a flick that will hopefully be more cohesive than Svankmajer’s live action/stop motion Alice. Don’t get me wrong — the stop-motion is mesmerizing, and far more sublimely creepy than any other film version of the story, but the live-action Alice and her dialogue really blows it.
And it seems like Burton recognizes the importance of getting the weird imagery a la Svankmajer. He says, "the stories are like drugs for children, you know?" Hardly a mind-bending take on the material, but certainly accurate.
Shooting from the Linda Wolverton script is scheduled for early 2008, a period during which Burton will hopefully have to take a couple days off to accept some awards for Sweeney Todd.
EDIT: Since our (very) brief prior coverage of Burton’s Alice was buried in a broader article, the important detail for readers just clued into this project is that, like the director’s retake on Frankenweenie, this version of Alice will be a 3D flick made through Disney. If this fall really does point to a rejuvinated Burton, this is something to be truly optimistic about.