Tim Burton's Alice Revealed

Rumors have been floating around for months regarding who would play the lead in Tim Burton's upcoming Alice in Wonderland.
But at long last, the Hollywood Reporter has announced that Burton and Disney have found their Alice: 18-year-old Australian actress Mia Wasikowska. The young actress is reportedly in final negotiations for her part in the Lewis Carroll adaptation.

Mia Wasikowska (Getty Images photo)

Burton kept his word by casting a relative "unknown" actress in the business, but simultaneously one that has experience. Wasikowska, originally born in Canberra, began her career in the Australian TV series "All Saints" and is currently a regular on HBO's "In Treatment." Her other upcoming cinematic projects include "Defiance," a war drama which will also star Daniel Craig and be directed by Ed Zwick, and she plays a supporting role in a forthcoming biographical movie on Amelia Earhart, "Amelia," starring Hilary Swank and directed by Mira Nair.

While the rest of the cast of Alice hasn't been announced (or found?), we do already know of principle players in the making of the film. Long-time Disney scribe Linda Woolverton has written the screenplay; frequent Burton collaborator Richard D. Zanuck is producing the film, along with former Disney chairman Joe Roth and Jennifer and Suzanne Todd. Disney creative executive Jason Reed will oversee the project.

Alice in Wonderland will be a combination of live-action and performance-capture computer-generated animation. It will be released in theaters in Disney Digital 3-D in March 2010. Principal photography is said to commence this November, several months later than previously anticipated.

Hopefully, more news (and more accurate news) will come shortly!

Australian Release Date for New "Nightmare" DVD Announced

DVDfeed.com.au announced that the special collector's edition of The Nightmare Before Christmas will be available in Australia on October 22nd -- just in time for Halloween.

The special features will be the same as those found on the American Blu-Ray and standard DVD versions of the upcoming 15th anniversary release.

"Edward Scissorhands" Ballet Tour Information

In case you missed it before, Matthew Bourne's ballet adaptation of Edward Scissorhands may be coming to a continent near you.

Information on the global tour of the ballet was released on whatsonstage.com. According to the website, the show will return to Sadler's Wells in London for a seven-week season this Christmas.

"As part of a new international tour, the dance drama will run at Sadler’s Wells, where it broke box office records during its first season in late 2005, from 2 December 2008 to 29 November 2009," said whatsonstage.com.

The ballet features music by Terry Davies based on Danny Elfman’s film score.

"Prior to London, Edward Scissorhands will also visit Birmingham, Salford and Wimbledon. And, before and after the UK, it will tour Australia for nine weeks, spend four weeks in Paris and visit Athens and Antwerp."

"Edward Scissorhands" Ballet Comes to Australia

The acclaimed ballet version of Tim Burton's classic film Edward Scissorhands is coming to Australia. The ballet, brought to the stage by British choreographer Matthew Bourne, was already a big hit when it made its debut in Britain in 2005, and was a celebrated success in the United States, as well.

At the tour launch at the Sydney Opera House on January 29th, 2008, Bourne said that he had wanted to adapt Burton's cult classic since the early 1990s, when he emerged as Britain's most exciting new choreographer.

However, it took nearly a decade to obtain the rights and get Tim Burton, co-writer Caroline Thompson, composer Danny Elfman, and 20th Century-Fox to permit the ballet adaptation.

"I think if I'd asked them for permission to make a TV series or a theme park ride, they would have said no," Bourne said.

"But what intrigued them was the peculiar form of theater I do, which is storytelling without words."

After eight years of waiting, the show was allowed.

Matthew Malthouse as Edward Scissorhands

Bourne said in Sydney that he was initially concerned with the scissors.

"Although they are not obviously actual blades, they move quite fast and you could get injured by them," he said.

"We've had nothing major happen, but the blades do break sometimes or they snap off."

“In a way Edward Scissorhands is Tim Burton,” Bourne observed. Bourne got the mother of Helena Bonham Carter to persuade the director into seeing one of his productions.

But Bourne was most nervous on how the star of the original film version, Johnny Depp, would think of the production, as he was the one who brought Edward to life on screens in 1990. After many months, Depp finally caught the show when it arrived in Los Angeles.

Bourne recalled: “He spent an hour with the company and tried on the hands. He wrote to me afterwards and said he was ‘teetering on the edge of tears all the way through it, mate’.”

The Australian tour of the ballet will commence at His Majesty’s Theatre from July 1 to 6.

You can see a video preview of the Sydney show here.

Attend the Tale of Sweeney Todd...

In case you haven't already noticed, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street opens today in U.S. cinemas!



If you're not in the U.S., here are the current release dates for other countries:

Country	Date
Canada	21 December 2007
USA	21 December 2007
Japan	25 December 2007	(Yurakucho) (premiere)
Japan	7 January 2008	(Kudanminami) (premiere)
UK	10 January 2008	(London) (premiere)
Argentina	17 January 2008
Japan	19 January 2008
France	23 January 2008
Australia	24 January 2008
Hungary	24 January 2008
Netherlands	24 January 2008
Iceland	25 January 2008
New Zealand	25 January 2008
Turkey	25 January 2008
UK	25 January 2008
Hong Kong	31 January 2008
Lebanon	31 January 2008
Portugal	31 January 2008
Denmark	1 February 2008
Singapore	7 February 2008
Brazil	8 February 2008
Egypt	13 February 2008
Estonia	15 February 2008
Spain	15 February 2008
Germany	21 February 2008
Switzerland	21 February 2008	(German speaking region)
Italy	22 February 2008
Norway	22 February 2008
Sweden	22 February 2008
Belgium	27 February 2008
Finland	29 February 2008

"Vincent" in 3D and "Sweeney Todd" Release Dates Announced!

The Hollywood Reporter (http://www.movieweb.com/news/53/18853.php) has some good news for Burton fans: Not only is The Nightmare Before Christmas going to return to theaters in 3D this fall, but Tim Burton's 1982 stop-motion short film, Vincent, will also be released with it, also in 3D!

For anyone who wants to mark their calendars, some release dates for Tim Burton's next feature film, Sweeney Todd, have been released. ComingSoon.net (http://www.comingsoon.net/films.php?id=16053) has said that Sweeney Todd is set for limited release (most likely Los Angeles and New York City) just in time for Christmas, on December 21st, 2007. However, anyone living in the US but not in that area might need to wait until January 11th, 2008 for the wide release of the Sondheim musical's big-screen debut. IMDb.com (http://imdb.com/title/tt0408236/releaseinfo) has listed release dates for other countries (however, it is not officially determined if all of these are accurate or not):

Italy	5 September 2007	(Venice Film Festival)
USA	21 December 2007	(limited)
Norway	11 January 2008
USA	11 January 2008
Australia	24 January 2008
Netherlands	24 January 2008
UK	25 January 2008