Tim Burton and Disney Team Up for Two Films
Filed under: Animation, Deals, Disney, Family Films, Newsstand, Remakes and Sequels
Sarah Michelle Gellar's Alice, which will focus on a damaged, adult version of the girl in baby blue, is about to get some solid competition from the company that made the original story so darned popular in the first place. Variety has reported that the great Tim Burton has signed on to direct Alice in Wonderland for Walt Disney Studios -- the same company that helped him bring Ed Wood and The Nightmare Before Christmas to the big screen. But that's not all -- when he's done with that, he'll put together a feature-length movie based on his 1984 short film Frankenweenie -- the story of a pet dog brought back to life by his owner. Turns out the Frankenweenie rumor from way back at the beginning of October is indeed true.Man, I can only begin to imagine what Burton can cook up with both of these projects. The two films will combine live action and performance capture for a big 3D release, as is just all the rage these days. The Alice script is based on the Lewis Carroll classic, as opposed to Disney's treatment first treatment of it, and was written by The Lion King scribe Linda Woolverton. Once Sweeney Todd is all said and done, Burton will film his version of Wonderland in early 2008, and aims to wrap it up in May. However, for some reason, Variety is still calling it a pre-strike project.*
After dealing with hearts, bunnies, tea parties, and all the wonderful Wonderland shenanigans, Burton will give the same 3D treatment to his 23-year-old story. I would hope he's going to pen the film himself; however, that hasn't been confirmed. So, now the question is: who will Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp play?
*Variety has removed this comment from their post.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-16-2007 @ 10:55AM
ML said...
No doubt Variety is calling Wonderland "pre-strike" because it is written. Already.
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11-16-2007 @ 11:35AM
MB said...
ML -- It was originally at the end of this: "Burton, who is wrapping "Sweeney Todd" at Paramount and DreamWorks, will tackle "Alice in Wonderland" early next year, with production set to wrap by May."
But now the strike comment has magically disappeared!
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11-16-2007 @ 12:04PM
Steve Vesolich said...
It's only natural that Helena will play the Queen and Jonny will play the Mad Hatter.Why mess with what works?
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11-16-2007 @ 4:16PM
Flit said...
Oh joy, another tim burton remake. I wonder if Alice will come back to earth only to find that Abe Lincon was a monkey, or that Edward Scissorhands is really Frankenweenie.
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11-16-2007 @ 6:37PM
Bryan said...
According to the Variety article (and the previous rumor), Frankenweenie will not be performance capture, it will be stop motion animation shot in 3-D (like Henry Selick's Coraline). So you should correct that in your article.
I love Frankenweenie and look forward to seeing it expanded in stop motion, but it's kind of a weird choice. I'm not sure it needs to be longer than half an hour, for one thing, and the way the original short creates the world of the James Whale movies in a kid's backyard is so great, I can't see how stop motion would work as well for that story.
But I'm very excited to see what Burton does with motion capture. I've enjoyed Zemeckis's movies, but he's stuck on the ridiculous idea of using it for photorealistic characters, which will never not be creepy and distracting. I bet Burton will do something more stylized and it will work a lot better.
Also, for some reason it's kind of nice to see Burton reuniting with Disney, especially the new Pixar-ized Disney. Something good ought to come out of that.
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12-06-2007 @ 6:12AM
Francesco said...
I have mixed feelings about both projects. Alice In Wonderland is potentially very Burtonish material, but that is exactly what worries me: already Charlie and The Chocolate Factory and Corpse Bride looked to me as Burton trying to be Burtonish once again, if you know what I mean. I actually would like to see him engaged with some different material, maybe an original script - his best things have come from original scripts, if you think about: Vincent, Edward Scissorhands, Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood - and something that might add a twist in his career. For the same reasons, I'm not too keen on the idea of seeing Frankenweenie extended to a feature film, why remaking something that worked so well in the first place? Sounds like he's running out of ideas...
However, I'm curious to see how he can deal with 3D motion capture. Something good might come out from approaching a new technique, especially if in combination with traditional stop-motion animation.
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