Here's what's happening in the world of movie news today:

• UPDATE: Columbia Pictures has announced that The White Stripes' Jack White will team with Alicia Keys on the Quantum of Solace theme song. Said song will be called "Another Way to Die," and it will be the first duet in Bond soundtrack history.
• UPDATE: Universal lands Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards -- they will partner with The Weinstein Co. on the WWII flick. The writer-director has already met with Brad Pitt about playing a role, and production is scheduled to start this fall. (Variety)
• UPDATE: MTV has confirmed through IDW Publishing that "The Fallen" in the Transformers 2 title does indeed refer to the main villain in the film.
• Holy Harry Potter and Half-Blood Prince trailer! It debuts online today! Prior to its arrival, USA Today has posted a photo (see above) of the young Tom Riddle (aka young Voldemort). Kid looks a tad creepy ... what do you think? We'll update this post as soon as the trailer arrives online.
• Tim Burton's making an Alice in Wonderland movie, so now we have to figure out which role Johnny Depp will play. In our minds, there's only one -- and Celeb Edge says Depp has been pegged to star as the Mad Hatter. Let me guess: Depp's performance will come with a side order of freaky and creepy?
• Jennifer Lopez will star in the romantic comedy The Governess, where she'll play a thief who poses as the nanny of three unruly children in order to rob a bank. The romance comes into play when she begins to fall for the widowed father of the three kids. What to do: Rob a bank for millions ... or get involved with a dude who has three annoying kids? Oh, the tough decisions these characters must face ... (Variety)
  
• IGN has thrown up the brand spanking new Friday the 13th poster (see to the right; click to enlarge). You can also read all about that particular Comic Con panel over here. If we're lucky, this will be the one where Jason finally shares his feelings through talking and not physical harm ...

More after the jump ...

Tim Burton has cast the title role in the new adaptation of Alice in Wonderland he's working on for Disney. It is not, as was rumored a couple weeks ago, Ryan Nikole Parker, but it's not anyone more well-known, either. The role has gone to Australian actress Mia Wasikowska -- and holy crap, I have nothing but respect for anyone who can break into Hollywood and retain a name like Mia Wasikowska. Up until now, her only high-profile credits have been as a regular on HBO's In Treatment and in the much-hyped but little-seen killer crocodile flick Rogue. But the 18-year-old has parts in the upcoming Defiance (Edward Zwick's latest pitch to AMPAS) and the Earhart biopic Amelia, so she should be recognizable by the time Alice in Wonderland surfaces.

The film will be a combination of live-action and motion-capture animation, and will be released in digital 3-D -- but what big new movie won't be, these days? It was written by Linda Woolverton, who worked on The Lion King, and it starts shooting in November for a 2010 release.

I'm as big a Tim Burton devotee as you'll find (don't believe me? Find me one other person who will admit to liking the Planet of the Apes remake), so I'll gladly swoon over a Burton version of the Lewis Carroll classic. In fact, this is such an on-the-nose project for Burton that I'm kind of surprised it took him this long to get to it. But I'll take it.

Before we get started, I just want to make it clear that in Hollywood nothing is ever official until you see the press release (and you should probably take the following news with a big grain of salt). Over at the Alice in Wonderland fan site, talk has surfaced that Tim Burton has finally cast Alice in his live-action version of Alice in Wonderland (not to be confused with the long-suffering American McGee creation).

According to the commenter, Ian B: "My brother is working on the movie and he said Alice has been cast. He is a music supervisor for the movie and said there will be a press release about it on July 9th. The role was originally supposed to be Evan Rachel Woods but she backed out. Alice won't be played by a child but a 23 year old. From what I was told it's her first Burton movie, and her first big role in a film that will be released world wide." So who's the lucky gal? Say hello to Ryan Nikole Parker. Parker is not very well known, and other than a few TV credits is a relative newcomer to the business.

Burton struck the deal for Alice with Disney back in November, and according to comments on the IMDB message boards, he's already finished casting. Luckily for us, July 9th isn't that far away, so we won't be waiting long for the official word.

Sound off below on who you would like to see go down the rabbit hole with Mr. Burton.

[via The Bad and Ugly]

In case you haven't noticed, 3-D movies are officially back, and we're about to see a whole lot of them in the next few years. But it's no longer just Hollywood that's producing new films in the format. Spain is also getting in on the fun with a 3-D family film titled The Magic Tale, which tells the story of a young girl's "magical journey" to Africa. Catalan journalist and filmmaker Jordi Llompart (the IMAX film Mystery of the Nile) has adapted his own children's book, "El Corazón Sobre La Arena," which was dedicated to his daughter, Jana, who died in Africa in 2005.

The movie began shooting in March in Namibia and South Africa and will resume next month in Barcelona. Variety reports that Spanish actress Leonor Watling (Talk to Her) has just joined the cast as a fairy who teaches the young girl (Eva Gerretsen), "the secrets of the heart." The rest of the cast includes Namibian child actor Raymond Mvula, South African actor John Whiteley (Duma), Spanish actor Adrià Collado (Evita) and Spanish supermodel Verónica Blume. The latter two play the girl's parents.

Malice won't have its way with Sunderland anymore. The BBC reports that the upcoming, and long-delayed new take on Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, Malice in Sunderland, will not be filmed on Wearside, and it has got a new name -- Malice in Wonderland.

The film was hoping for a £250,000 bit of cash from the area, but the region's film group said that their cash goes to talent from the region. So, with that hefty bit of change biting the dust, the film will now be shot in the Southend with a new title. However, producer Albert Martinez-Martin says that the name change is only due to the play on words: "The title was also changed as everyone in the UK would know Sunderland but outside UK they wouldn't. I also thought two puns in one title were one too many." Do you really need to know what Sunderland is to enjoy, or recognize the title?

I don't believe the hype that 3-D will dominate the movie world in the near future, but it does seem like a lot of movies are using the technology these days. The Hollywood Reporter has announced that Disney will release the animated feature Bolt, (once called American Dog) in Digital 3-D next year. Bolt features the voices of John Travolta, Woody Harrelson, and Susie Essman (who had better curb her Curb Your Enthusiasm language!). It tells "the story of a TV star dog named Bolt (Travolta) who is accidentally shipped from his Hollywood soundstage to New York, where he begins a cross-country journey through the real world." Chris Williams directs the film.

Disney has been one of the biggest supporters of 3-D. In recent years, Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons, and the sweet, sweet Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas were all released in the format. Speaking of Nightmare, as Monika told you earlier this month, Tim Burton has signed to produce and direct 3-D versions of Alice in Wonderland and his own terrific short film, Frankenweenie for Disney. On the opposite end of the cool spectrum, Disney's next 3-D release is the Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour, which will play in theaters Feb. 1-7. Start scalping those tickets now!

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.

With the wacky sounds of a Very Merry Unbirthday, I will always believe that the wonderful Ed Wynn is the Mad Hatter. Oh, how I love that insane, toy-making tea party man. But I guess if I had to deal with someone else taking on the role, there's probably not much better than Alan Cumming. (He's practically channeling Wynn in the picture to the right.) The Hollywood Reporter has posted that the zany actor is producing a new flick called Hatter, along with the film's writer James Killough and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels executive producer Angad Paul. Not only that, but he's re-teaming with X2 co-star Rebecca Romijn to do it.

The pic is said to be based on the Mad Tea Party scene from Alice in Wonderland, although I'm not quite sure how that is. In such a strange casting move (she said tongue-in-cheek), Cumming is going to play Matt Hatter -- "a hedonistic fashion designer," while the ex-Stamos will be his adversary, Alice Allyson -- "a journalist who knows about his shady past." So far, it sounds like all they took from the scene are spoofs on the names, unless they're going to throw in some sort of bizarre tea party into the middle, or perhaps an unbirthday.

This is also looking to be a new running theme for Cumming -- taking on classic characters/people. He's got his stint as Glitch in the television miniseries Tin Man, and just voiced Hitler in the upcoming Jackboots on Whitehall. But that's all we have for you right now on this weird Wonderland redo; however, we should have more information soon, as the production is set to film in the spring of 2008. On top of all this, Cumming will receive the Golden Apple Award at this year's Big Apple Film Festival during the opening night screening of his film, Suffering Man's Charity, on November 14 at Tribeca Cinemas in NYC.

While the news isn't all too surprising, apparently Disney is fast-tracking a sequel to their spring hit Wild Hogs. Not only that, but they're also prepping a whole lot more including a mysterious Alice in Wonderland project that may or may not be live action. The Disney Enquirer has unveiled their Spring edition of Disney Domains, showing us all the various domain names Disney has registered as of late. And yes, among them are WildHogs2-Movie.com, WildHogs2DVD.com and WildHogsMovie2.com.

Along with Wild Hogs 2, there's this Alice: Through the Looking Glass flick. A number of different domains were registered, all of them either including the name 'Alice' or the words 'through the looking glass.' Is Disney simply planning a direct-to-DVD sequel for Alice, or could this be something bigger (ie: Pixar bigger)? Some other films registered are: 9 Lives of John, Aftermath, I Hate Valentine's Day (a new Nina Vardalos flick), Link, Manhunt, Mercenary, Pool Rats and a bunch more. Aside from straight movie domains, Disney also registered a ton of Buy N Large Ultra Store domains. No, the Mouse House is not looking to open up their own super mega store. Apparently, this one has to do with Pixar's Wall-E -- Buy N Large is a company (headed up by one Fred Willard) hired to clean up Earth 700 years into the future. I imagine Disney will have some fun with this one once it becomes time to start promoting Wall-E, due out in 2008. Feel free to scope out the list, and let us know if you find anything else worth mentioning.

[via filmick]

Most of us grew up with Disney characters. We'd anxiously await the release of the next video tape and then imagine ourselves in worlds with singing dwarves, tiny glass slippers and fairy godmothers, while poison apples, wicked stepsisters and sinister spinning wheels loomed on the horizon. Now, through the eye of Annie Leibovitz, the oft-remembered, animated scenes are getting further life through edited photography and celebrity re-creations.

The famous photographer was nabbed by Disney as part of their Year of a Million Dreams campaign. Her job -- to create an on-going series of photographs that use notable names to re-create the Disney scenes we know and love. So far, she's doing one hell of a job. The first celebrity to sign on is Scarlett Johansson, who took on the glass slippers for Cinderella's midnight run. Beyond being visually striking, what makes these pictures pop is the mixture of actual photography and digital flair. The actress was shot running down the steps of the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial in New York, and the the rest was re-created. It makes me wonder if a live-action film would work using this technique, because it looks pretty damned great!