First picture of Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland

USA Today has the first photos of the characters in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, due out March, 2010, and they look fantastic. Johnny Depp wears a red curly wig, goofy expression and top hat as the Mad Hatter while Helena Bonham carter is a haughty, cruel Red Queen of Hearts. Anne Hathaway plays The White Queen in a long blonde wig and full red lips. USA Today also has scrollable large pictures of the concept art from the film, but no photos of the young woman who plays Alice, a 19 year-old Australian actress, Mia Wasikowska, from HBO’s In Treatment:

You might have gone down the rabbit hole before. But never with a guide quite as attuned to the fantastic as Tim Burton.

Those who have grown curiouser and curiouser about what the offbeat reinventor of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory might conjure up in his version of Alice in Wonderland can feast their eyes on this array of concept art and publicity images, due to hang in movie theaters this week to promote the March 5, 2010, release.

“It has been Burton-ized” is how producer Richard Zanuck describes the director’s vision of the Lewis Carroll classic. Many elements are familiar, from the enigmatic Caterpillar (Alan Rickman) to the fierce Jabberwock (Christopher Lee). But none has been presented in this sort of visually surreal fashion.

“We finished shooting in December after only 40 days,” Zanuck says. Now the live action is being merged with CG animation and motion-capture creatures, and then transferred into 3-D.

The traditional tale has been freshened with a blast of girl power, courtesy of writer Linda Woolverton (Beauty and the Beast). Alice, 17, 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.

Among those who welcome her back is the Mad Hatter, a part tailor-made for Johnny Depp as he collaborates with Burton for the seventh time. “This character is off his rocker,” Zanuck says.

Aussie actress Mia Wasikowska, 19, best known for HBO’s In Treatment, has the coveted title role. “There is something real, honest and sincere about her,” Zanuck says. “She’s not a typical Hollywood starlet.”

There is the usual Burton-esque ghoulishness (Helena Bonham Carter’s Red Queen, whose favorite retort is “Off with their heads,” has a moat filled with bobbing noggins), but Zanuck assures most kids can handle it. “The book itself is pretty dark,” he notes. “This is for little people and people who read it when they were little 50 years ago.”

[From USA Today]

I thought the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory remake fell a little flat, but Sweeney Todd was incredible, due in no small part to the excellent storyline that Burton was working with. It was too gory for my taste though. I love that the producer assures us that it’s appropriate for little kids and won’t be too violent or scary. This movie is likely to be a hit across the board.

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