FAQ for
Alice (2009)

Actually, this is not an adaptation of Carroll's books, it is an adaptation of American McGee's video game, which is also called Alice. The video game is set about ten years after the second book, and is NOT a remake of the first Alice book as some seem to believe.

The game takes place after her second adventure Through the Looking-Glass And what Alice Found There. A candle in Alice's house is knocked to the floor by a cat and causes the house to catch fire - Alice luckily survives, but her parents die. Alice enters a deep state of catatonia and is institutionalised in an Asylum. After being in the asylum for several years, she responds to a mysterious summons to return to Wonderland, and the place is barely recognisable. Something has gone very wrong. Undaunted by the diseased atmosphere, confusion and mortal danger that surrounds her, Alice commits to restore Wonderland to its proper state, in hopes of regaining her sanity as well.

Note: This has nothing to do with Disney's "Alice in Wonderland" film. That was simply another adaptation of Lewis Carroll's books.

You are quite right. This project has gone through plenty a change. The film began as a project spearheaded by American McGee in 2000. The project's history is a rocky one and despite initial success, it met with disaster and fell into obscurity for several years. For a long time, it seemed the project was lost and that the film would not happen.

Prior to this announcement, there were earlier attemps to create a film based on the videogame. Unofficially, the project was often referred to as Dark Wonderland. Negotiations began even before the game was finished in 2000. American McGee and two film producers pitched the idea of making a movie to Dimension Films. Head of Dimension Studios, Bob Weinstien was shown the CG trailer for the game and "then he slammed his fist down and said, 'we are making this movie.'". Dimension Films hired John August to write a film treatment and Wes Craven was supposed to direct the film. However, Craven did not care for August's treatment and despite attempts by other writers to put forth ideas for the story, no progress was made. The studio became displeased with the two film producers and the project collapsed.

According to screenwriter John August, neither the alleged title Dark Wonderland nor any rumored casting were real. Wes Craven, in answering questions about the proposed film, also indicated that the project never even reached a stage in which casting would be considered.

For several years, there was no news of the film. Fans sent e-mails to John August and American McGee and both replied that they did not know what was happening with it. Despite being the creative force behind the game, McGee did not own the rights to it. Four years after initial announcements, in April 2004, McGee stated that the film rights had been moved to 20th Century Fox. McGee wrote that they "love the project and are going to make it", but he was skeptical. And in the end, the project would not be produced by Fox, but another year would pass before there was an update.

Finally, On June 21, 2005 news surfaced that the film adaptation was going to be produced. The project had moved to Universal Studios and would be titled, Alice, with Erich and Jon Hoeber adapting the script.

Marcus Nispel was set to direct. The news came in connection with the announcement that actress Sarah Michelle Gellar had been cast as Alice. American McGee was listed as an executive producer on the project.

Originally planned for release in 2006, the release date was later changed to 2007.

On February 3, 2006, it was announced in an interview that the script for Alice had been completed, and that filming could begin as early as the summer.

from Wikipedia.com

That is an old script. It's probably been scrapped by now.

A synopsis for this old script used to be found here: http://www.abandonent.com/content/films/alice.html If you have a current address please post it.

It's also possible this rumour has something to do with the Frank Beddor book 'The Looking Glass Wars', in which the queen of hearts/red queen is Alice's aunt Redd.

Alice is admitted into the asylum somewhere around age 8-9 (1864). The last date recorded in the case book (that came with the original edition of the game) is 1874, when Alice is 18/19 years old. In the case book, on the date of September 7, 1873, Alice presented her doctor with a picture of the Cheshire Cat (which is the first character she meets up with in the game). This has lead us to assume that she enters Wonderland around the age of 17/18.

The above appears to be a somewhat correct calculation. This is from McGee: I know this one has been asked before. When I wrote the story for the game I did some kind of calculation to ensure that she was aged 18 when the new adventure into Wonderland began. Again, not exactly sure of her age in the movie - and again, not sure it's critical to the story.

Sarah Michelle Gellar was born on April 14th, 1977. That makes her 30 years old, i.e 12 years older than Alice. If you haven't noticed; in Hollywood, it is quite normal to cast actors in much younger roles. Quite weird, but at least we can say that this movie is going by the (Hollywood) book!

As of yet, no one knows. We can only hope that Chris Vrenna, the composer of the game's soundtrack, will work on this version as well.

You've heard wrong! That was simply a rumour. Mr. Manson was cast to play the Queen in another Alice film, "Living Neon Dreams" (http://imdb.com/title/tt0371796/), but is now making his own film about Alice instead. His movie will bear the name "Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll" (http://imdb.com/title/tt0758775/).

No, although it had been considered for "Dark Wonderland", Alice will be live-action. As you might expect, no live-action movie is without CGI effects these days.

Alice was light blonde in Disney's movie adaption, mainly because Alice was modeled after Kathryn Beaumont, who also provided the voice of Alice. Sarah's natural hair colour is brown.

In the original Alice books, her hair colour is blonde (though the illustrations are black and white. They were colorised in "The Nursery Alice"). In some prints of the books, however, her hair is brown.

It has been proposed that Alice in the Carroll books was based upon a real child, Alice Pleasance Liddell (b. 1852, d. 1934), but this is merely speculation based on the fact that Lewis Carrol was a Liddell family friend who would entertain Alice and two of her sisters with stories.

The books are dedicated to Alice Liddell, though, and there is an acrostic poem at the end of Through the Looking Glass that spells her full name using the first letter of each line. However, it should be noted that Lewis Carroll (penname of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson - b. 1832, d. 1898) has also stated that Alice is not based upon any real girl.

In American McGee's Alice, the heroine has long, brown hair. This may coincide with the speculation of the connection to Alice Liddell (a picture at age 20 shows her with long hair, a contrast to pictures of her as a child), or, more likely, to illustrate the changes she's gone through to tie into the dark feel of the game.

SMG's hair should be fine, but no, she will not be blonde, assuming they decide to go by the game. We all know how different the Doom movie turned out.

The movie will follow the storyline of the game, which is an extension of the storyline from Lewis Carrol's famous stories, meaning the heroine is merely an aged, and tormented, version of Lewis Carrol's Alice. The game's author, American McGee, has even stated that the heroine in the game is the heroine from the books, "Alice in the game is supposed to be Alice from the book. No idea what the film writers are thinking on this subject though. From what I read of the script it isn't critical. It wasn't critical to the game either."