Did you expect anything less strange? USA Today has debuted the first wacky batch of official images from Tim Burton’s upcoming take on the “Alice In Wonderland” tale.
Among the first glimpses are stills of Johnny Depp as an “off the rocker” Mad Hatter complete with a “Carrot Top mop” and “enlarged eyes tinted yellow (exactly like the leaked photos earlier this year, no one was sure were 100% real);” Helen Bonham Carter as the Red Queen with a “digital enhanced swelled head;” and Anne Hathaway as the White Queen who is reportedly very eccentric and prefers to float rather than walk.
The film is also revealed to be somewhat of a sequel to the classic Lewis Carroll story. Scribed by Linda Woolverton (“The Lion King,” “Beauty And The Beast”), Burton’s story will begin after Alice – now 17 years old – “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.”
Shooting for the film was completed in December of last year but the project is now in the process of merging the live-action with CG animation and motion-captured creatures before finally being transferred to 3-D. Concept art for the film was also unveiled and, in addition to introducing us to the world Burton hopes to create, features characters such as the legendary White Rabbit (Michael Sheen) and Tweedledee and Tweedledum (“Little Britain’s” Matt Lucas).
“Alice In Wonderland” is set for a March 5th, 2010 release.