Last week, we got our first look at Alan Rickman's Caterpillar in the upcoming Tim Burton-directed "Alice in Wonderland." It was a slightly blurry magazine scan, not necessarily how you'd want to have your first glimpse of the beloved character.
Well you don't have to worry about that anymore. Disney finally issued the full, hi-res images, three posters which combine into a triptych. They'd previously been available exclusively on the Disloyal Subjects of the Mad Hatter Facebook page, but now we have them here for you. Check out the lovely triptych below, or click it to check out our newly updated "Alice" flipbook, complete with a better look at that Caterpillar poster.
I'm a longtime fan of Tim Burton and a forever fan of Disney's animated classic, "Alice in Wonderland." So the idea that the two are combining into one beautiful work of nightmare-inducing psychedelia has me pretty tickled. So as you might imagine, I've been following the upcoming movie's development pretty closely.
All along, the one thing I've been most excited about seeing -- and the one thing that's been kept under wraps for all this time -- has been the character of the hookah-smoking caterpillar, who will be voiced by Alan Rickman. It made me feel better when Tim Burton told us over the summer that he hadn't even seen the character yet, but it's still an itch that I've been hoping to scratch. Not anymore though! Read more...
I’m the first to admit that remakes are rarely, if ever, a good idea. We can hardly claim, as a culture, that we prize originality over all else. We’re gluttons for the good stuff. Like movies based on 1980s cartoons? We’ll make more! Y’all like vampires in love? Have all the lovey dovey vampires you can handle! Imitation is a-okay, but giving us the exact same thing? That’s how you piss an audience off.
A remake is just a reflection of something the audience already loves, not a straight reproduction. That’s a hurdle many of 2010’s biggest movies are facing. The first six months of next year are chock full of marquee remakes, releases that are bound to stoke fan ire when they fail to meet expectations. I, however, have a solution for the makers of these films: Kanye West. Just look at his VMA outburst! Give the man a bit part in these five films, and he’ll reassure the audience that they’re not alone in their preferred choice.
Hit the jump to see where Kanye would fit best. Read more...
"Dark Shadows" is a '60s soap opera about vampires. All things supernatural really, but vampires are a big focus thanks to Jonathan Frid's character Barnabas Collins. In an interview with MTV's Josh Horowitz, director Tim Burton -- who will soon turn to "Dark Shadows" with frequent collaborator Johnny Depp as its star -- said that it's too early to say if fans can expect a cameo from Frid in the adaptation.
Besides, Burton has bigger "Shadows" concerns than that. "One of the biggest challenges on ['Dark Shadows'] is to just capture that weird tone of the show," he said. For now, the focus is on Burton's unfinished "Alice in Wonderland," which hits theaters in March 2010. As the director reveals in the video below, he hasn't even seen the Caterpillar yet! "Dark Shadows" will come, in due time. But first, we all need to take a trip down the rabbit hole.
"Little Red Riding Hood" is one of the creepier folktales out there. A young girl goes skipping through a dark forest, bound for her sick grandmother's house with a basket full of food. Along the way she encounters a wolf, who advises her to bring flowers. While Little Red is dilly-dallying, the wolf runs ahead to poor grandma's house and eats her, disguising himself as the poor lady. Then he eats Red when she arrives, only to be saved by a wandering hunter who cuts the two free, fills the wolf's body with stones and drowns him.
Pleasant, right? There have actually been numerous variations on the story, and now it looks like we'll be getting one more. Variety reports that Leonardo DiCaprio has picked up the rights to "Little Red Riding Hood" under his Appian Way banner. The trade reports that the project will serve up a "Gothic reimagining" of the fairy tale, with a script from "Orphan" writer David Leslie Johnson. Read more...
The 2009 edition of San Diego Comic-Con is over, but that doesn't mean you have to stop enjoying the bountiful gifts it has brought us. We have a ton of interview footage that you've seen, quite a bit less that you may have missed and hours upon hours of material that has yet to be digitized for Internet consumption.
Then there are the trailers. Like this ridiculously badass one for "Ninja Assassin." And more after the jump, from "Pandorum," "Tron Legacy" and "Alice in Wonderland."
Read more...
San Diego Comic-Con has sadly preempted some of my daily features here on MTV Movies Blog (sorry Prop-Watch, Around the Blogosphere), but the avalanche of coverage makes this a good week to launch a new one. Every Friday, I'll be running through the preceding week's top stories (Friday through Friday, FYI) on MTV Movies Blog. As you might expect, a lot of the most clicked content for the week relates in some way to San Diego Comic-Con. Don't take my word for it though; let's let the list tell the tale.
Counting down of course...
#10 "Tron Legacy" Panel Report Fresh From San Diego Comic-Con -- Just as the title suggests, one of our writers on the ground at Comic-Con runs through the highlights of the "Tron Legacy" panel. Read more...
Rather than delivering a stylized logo, a release date and nothing more, the just-released teaser trailer for Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" is generously packed with real, actual movie footage. And it's great. Burton is just the right guy to bring Lewis Carroll's wacked-out vision of Wonderland to modern audiences, with liberal help from CG animation and Johnny Depp of course.
In fact, it is so packed with psychedelic goodness, that it's easy to let the little details fly by. Don't worry though-- we've got you covered. Over on MTV.com, I've put together a little shot-by-shot breakdown of the trailer for your reading pleasure. We've also got the HD version available now for your viewing pleasure. Capping it all off is a Freeze Frames image gallery which hits every major moment in the trailer.
Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" isn't the first incarnation of Lewis Carroll's classic story to appear in theaters, and it certainly won't be the last. Watching the "Beetlejuice" and "Corpse Bride" director take a stab at one of the most surreal oddities in children's literature is a bit like handing pyromaniac a match and the keys to a fireworks warehouse. Burton has more than 150 years of history for film goers to judge his adaptation of "Alice" against. Here are five productions, movies and otherwise, that have shown what unsettling undertones lurk in Carroll's tale. Read more...
FROM MTV.COM: Johnny Depp surprised fans at the Disney 3-D panel at San Diego Comic-Con by showing up at the end of Tim Burton's presentation of footage from "Alice in Wonderland."
Although Depp didn't answer questions, the crowd screamed and cheered when the actor was onstage, the room filling with flashes of cameras.
The shocking addition of Depp to the stage was a great end to the panel discussion, which began with filmmaker Tim Burton getting cheers of his own from the crowd. In a presentation that included a teaser trailer of various footage from the film in 3-D, Burton laughed about all the wacky characters who populate the world of his version of "Alice in Wonderland," including the Mad Hatter, played by Depp; the Red Queen, played by Helena Bonham Carter; and the White Queen, played by Anne Hathaway.
Johnny Depp, Tim Burton Preview 'Alice In Wonderland' At Comic-Con
