MarketAlice in Wonderland (2010 film)
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Alice in Wonderland (2010 film)

Alice In Wonderland is a 2010 American Gothic dark fantasy adventure film directed by Tim Burton from a screenplay written by Linda Woolverton and produced by Walt Disney Pictures. The film stars Mia Wasikowska in the live-action role, Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, Matt Lucas, Helena Bonham Carter, and Crispin Glover, and features the voices of Alan Rickman, Stephen Fry, Michael Sheen, Timothy Spall, Christopher Lee, Paul Whitehouse, Barbara Windsor, Imelda Staunton, Jim Carter, and Michael Gough in his final film role before he died in 2011. A live-action adaptation of the 1951 film adaptation of the same of name and remake based off of Lewis Carroll's novels Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, the film follows a British teenage Alice, who falls down a rabbit hole and returns to her childhood dream world called Wonderland, and alongside the Mad Hatter, helps restore the White Queen to her throne by fighting against the Red Queen and the Jabberwocky, a dragon who endangers Wonderland's residents.

Plot
In Victorian London, 19-year-old Alice Kingsleigh, having mourned the recent demise of her father, is troubled by strange recurring dreams and the stifling expectations of the society in which she lives. After receiving an unexpected and unwanted marriage proposal from Hamish Ascot at his family's British garden party, Alice spots a familiar white rabbit in a waistcoat and carrying a pocket watch. She follows it to a nearby rabbit hole and falls in, landing in a room full of doors. She bites into a small cake on the table labeled 'Eat Me', morphing into a giantess, and then shrinks after sipping from a bottle of liquid labeled 'Drink Me'. Now being able to fit through a tiny door, she enters the forest of a fantastical world called Underland. There, she is greeted by the White Rabbit, a Dormouse, a Dodo, Talking Flowers, and identical twin brothers Tweedledum and Tweedledee, who all apparently know her. Alice asserts that she is dreaming, but learns from Absolem the Blue Caterpillar that she has been prophesied to slay the Jabberwocky and end the tyranny of the Red Queen. The group is ambushed and pursued by the monstrous Bandersnatch and an army of Red Knights, led by the Knave of Hearts. All are captured except for Alice, who escapes, and the Dormouse, who steals one of the Bandersnatch's eyes. The Knave informs the Red Queen of Alice's return, and is ordered to find her immediately. The Cheshire Cat guides Alice to the Mad Hatter, March Hare, and Dormouse's tea party. The Red Knights and the Knave of Hearts disrupt the party, but Alice manages to hide in a teapot. The Hatter then takes her to a safe place and explains how the Red Queen took over Underland, usurping her sister, the White Queen. While in the woods, the Red Knights find the two, but the Hatter gives himself up so that Alice can escape. She is found by the Knave's Bloodhound, named Bayard, a hunting dog who is allied with the resistance. He takes Alice to the Red Queen's castle, where she interrupts a game of croquet being played in the courtyard by transforming into a giant again after eating more of the cake that made her grow. Infiltrating the palace as a courtier named "Um", Alice learns the vorpal sword, the only weapon capable of killing the Jabberwocky, is locked inside of the Bandersnatch's den. The Knave makes a pass at Alice, which she rebuffs, but the jealous Red Queen orders her beheading. Alice obtains the sword and returns the Bandersnatch's eye. He gratefully helps her escape the castle and delivers her to the White Queen, who gives Alice a potion that returns her to her normal size. The Cheshire Cat uses his shapeshifting powers to free the Hatter, who incites rebellion amongst the Red Queen's subjects. Meanwhile, Absolem, who is spinning himself a cocoon, finally gets Alice to remember that she visited Underland as a little girl, and called it "Wonderland". He advises her to fight the Jabberwocky, save Underland, and stop the Red Queen for good. The Queens gather their armies on a chessboard-like battlefield and send a knighted Alice and the Jabberwocky to battle in a single combat. The conflict ends when Alice beheads the Jabberwocky with the vorpal sword, and the Red Knights gratefully turn against their ruler. After regaining her crown, the White Queen banishes her sister and the Knave into exile together, and gives Alice a vial of the Jabberwocky's blood, which can grant one wish. The Hatter encourages her to stay, but she admits she has to leave and promises to come back again one day. Alice says farewell to her friends, then drinks from the vial and wishes to return home. Alice awakens and climbs out of the rabbit hole. When she returns to the garden party, she rejects Hamish's proposal and impresses Lord Ascot with her idea of establishing trade routes to China, which was her father's original idea, resulting in her becoming an apprentice with the company. As Alice prepares to set off on a merchant ship, Absolem, in his new butterfly form, lands on her shoulder. ==Cast==
Cast
Johnny Depp as Tarrant Hightopp / Mad Hatter: Wasikowska said that the characters "both feel like outsiders and feel alone in their separate worlds, and have a special bond and friendship." She read Carroll's books as a child and re-read them to prepare for her role. She also watched Jan Švankmajer's Alice. She said, "When we were kids, my mum would pop it in the VCR player. We would be disturbed, and wouldn't really understand it, but we couldn't look away because it was too intriguing. So I had kept that feeling about Alice, a kind of haunting feeling." Mairi Ella Challen portrayed Alice as a six-year-old girl. • Helena Bonham Carter as Iracebeth / Red Queen: She is an amalgamation of two Carroll characters: the Red Queen and the Queen of Hearts. Hathaway summed up her character with a caption on a magnet of Happy Bunny holding a knife; "Cute but psycho. Things even out." According to Hathaway, "She comes from the same gene pool as the Red Queen. She really likes the dark side, but she's so scared of going too far into it that she's made everything appear very light and happy. But she's living in that place out of fear that she won't be able to control herself." Hathaway described her interpretation of the White Queen as "a punk-rock vegan pacifist", with inspiration drawn from Debbie Harry, Greta Garbo, and the artwork of Dan Flavin. • Crispin Glover as Ilosovic Stayne / Knave of Hearts: The characters are portrayed through a combination of CGI and live-action, with Lucas's face digitally composited to a full animated body. While performing the character, Lucas had to wear a teardrop-shaped motion capture suit and walk on stilts. To play both characters, Lucas was doubled by Ethan Cohn. • Frances de la Tour as Imogene: Alice's aunt. Sheen said the character "is such an iconic character that [he] didn't feel like [he] should break the mold too much." • Timothy Spall as Bayard Hamar / Bloodhound: Although Bayard does not appear in the book, a similar character named The Puppy is likely the inspiration for the character. • Paul Whitehouse as Thackery Earwicket / March Hare: Burton stated that because Whitehouse is a great comedic actor, a lot of his lines came from improvisation. • Michael Gough as Uilleam the Dodo: Burton said that Gough was the first person he thought of for the role of Uilleam because he has "a full life quality to his voice". The character only speaks three lines, that Gough recorded in a day. This would be Gough's final acting role; he died a year after its release, aged 94. Gough had previously portrayed the March Hare in the 1966 TV play of the book. • Christopher Lee as The Jabberwocky: While it only had two lines, Burton said that he felt Lee to be a good match for the iconic character because he is "an iconic guy". For the character, Lee had originally tried to make his voice "burble" (as described in the poem "Jabberwocky"). However, Burton convinced him to use his actual voice, as he found it more intimidating and aggressive. • Imelda Staunton as The Talking Flowers: Though many flowers appear around Underland, only one of them speaks and one of them is clearly a caricature of Staunton. Staunton only speaks three lines that are heard very briefly at the beginning of the film. • Jim Carter as The Executioner: The Executioner only speaks one line and appears extremely briefly, though Carter also voiced several other servants to the Red Queen. Frank Welker provided additional voices and vocal effects; including roars of the Jabberwocky and Bandersnatch, squawks for the Jubjub bird, and Bayard's barking. Rickman, Windsor, Fry, Gough, Lee, Staunton, and Carter each took only a day to record their dialogue. ==Production==
Production
Development and writing Development on Alice in Wonderland began in 2006, when Joe Roth, Jennifer and Suzanne Todd approached Linda Woolverton for ideas for a large fantasy movie; Woolverton proposed them a concept of grown-up Alice (from Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its 1871 sequel Through the Looking-Glass) returning to Wonderland, which she had in her head for a while. Roth then pitched the idea to Walt Disney Pictures, which greenlit the project, with Woolverton commissioned to write the script. and then it was submitted to Tim Burton, who agreed to helm the project. In April of that year, it was revealed that the film would be a blend of live-action and motion-capture, and by November 2007, Burton was officially on board to direct both Alice in Wonderland and a feature-length remake of his 1984 short film Frankenweenie. and refers to the described creature by the name of the poem rather than by the name "Jabberwock" used in the poem. Burton also stated that he does not see his version as either a sequel to any existing Alice'' film nor as a "re-imagining". According to Burton, he was searching for someone who would have "emotional toughness… standing her ground in a way which makes her kind of an older person but with a younger person’s mentality." In February 2008, Lindsay Lohan expressed interest in playing Alice. Actresses such as Jennifer Lawrence, Cara Delevingne, and Jessica Brown Findlay would later reveal that they also auditioned for the title role, with Brown Findlay being down to the last three. Dakota Blue Richards planned to audition as well, but she was much younger than required for the role. Mia Wasikowska was eventually cast as Alice in July 2008. She sent an audition tape in February of the same year and ended up coming over to the United Kingdom and doing four more auditions with Burton before she was chosen. Burton said that he picked Wasikowska because of "a simple kind of power to her that he really liked. Not flamboyant, not very showy, but just somebody that's got a lot of internal life to her." A few days after the announcement of Wasikowska's casting, Johnny Depp was reported to be signing up for the role of the Mad Hatter. His casting was officially confirmed in September 2008, marking Alice in Wonderland as Depp's seventh collaboration with Burton since Edward Scissorhands (1990). and a few days later, Variety reported that Michael Sheen had been cast in an undisclosed role, which was later revealed to be the White Rabbit. Tim Pigott-Smith, Geraldine James, and Frances de la Tour were also confirmed to appear in the film in then-unnamed roles. By October 2008, Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway were cast as the Red and White Queens, respectively. Like Depp, Bonham Carter had been Burton's frequent collaborator and had worked on five of his films. She was also Burton's first choice for the Red Queen, with his early sketches of the character made specifically with Bonham Carter in mind. Bonham Carter, who was then Burton's domestic partner, recalled that after he formally asked her to come to a meeting at his office, she thought Burton was going to propose marriage to her until he showed one of his character sketches and offered her the role. Before Burton was attached to the project, Hathaway, who had starred in The Princess Diaries (2001), was approached by Disney to portray Alice, but she refused as she was more interested in playing the White Queen. After Burton came on board, he considered another actress for the role, but she was unavailable due to scheduling conflicts and the studio suggested Hathaway instead. with Alan Rickman and Eleanor Tomlinson announced to play the Blue Caterpillar and Fiona Chattaway, respectively, while Christopher Lee was cast in undisclosed role, which was later revealed to be the Jabberwocky. Filming and visual effects in south Cornwall, England, which served as Lord Ascot's estate in the film This film was released on March 5, 2010. Filming also took place at Culver Studios also in Culver City. Burton said that he used a combination of live-action and animation, without motion-capture. He noted that this was the first time he had filmed on a green screen. Filming of the green screen portions, comprising 90% of the film, was completed after only 40 days. Many of the cast and crew felt nauseated as a result of the long hours surrounded by greenscreen, and Burton had lavender lenses fitted into his glasses to counteract the effect. Due to the constant need for visual effects to distort the actors' physical appearances, such as the size of the Red Queen's head or Alice's height, visual effects supervisor Ken Ralston cited the film as being exhausting, saying it was "The biggest show I've ever done, [and] the most creatively involved I've ever been." Sony Pictures Imageworks designed the visual effects sequences. Burton felt 3D was appropriate to the story's environment. Burton and Zanuck chose to film with conventional cameras and convert the footage into 3D during post-production; Zanuck explained 3D cameras were too expensive and "clumsy" to use, and they felt that there was no difference between converted footage and those shot in the format. James Cameron, who released his 3D film Avatar in December 2009, criticized the choice, saying, "It doesn't make any sense to shoot in 2D and convert to 3D." ==Music==
Music
Danny Elfman composed the musical score for Alice in Wonderland, after scoring Burton's films. Elfman did not want to use period music and instead blended orchestral, classical, and pop music, to highlight the internal score. He had used symphony orchestration for the visual style of Burton, incorporating the same methods by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Max Steiner, Franz Waxman, and Bernard Hermann. The score album was released by Walt Disney Records on March 2, 2010 and debuted at number 89 on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart. A concept album titled Almost Alice is a collection of various artists' music inspired by the film. It was released by Walt Disney under the Buena Vista Records imprint, on the same day as the score album's release. The lead single, "Alice" by Avril Lavigne, premiered on January 27, 2010 on Ryan Seacrest's radio program. Other singles include "Follow Me Down" by 3OH!3, "Her Name Is Alice" by the band Shinedown, and "Tea Party" by Kerli. ==Marketing==
Marketing
Promotions , showing the Dormouse on guitar, Cheshire Cat on drums, and Alice as lead singer On June 22, 2009, the first pictures of the film were released, showing Wasikowska as Alice, Depp as the Mad Hatter, Hathaway as the White Queen, Bonham Carter as the Red Queen and Lucas as Tweedledum and Tweedledee. On July 22, 2009, a teaser trailer from the Mad Hatter's point of view was released on IGN but was shortly taken down because Disney claimed that the trailer was not supposed to be out yet. The teaser was also planned to premiere along with a trailer of Robert Zemeckis' film adaptation of A Christmas Carol on July 24, 2009, for G-Force. The next day, the teaser trailer premiered at San Diego Comic-Con, but the trailer shown was different from the one which leaked. The Comic-Con version didn't have the Mad Hatter's dialogue. Instead, it featured "Time to Pretend" by MGMT and the clips shown were in a different order than in the leaked version. The leaked version was originally to be shown to one of the three Facebook groups used to promote the film which had the most members. The groups used to promote the film are "The Loyal Subjects of the Red Queen", "The Loyal Subjects of the White Queen", and "The Disloyal Subjects of the Mad Hatter". Also at Comic-Con, props from the film were displayed in an "Alice in Wonderland" exhibit. Costumes featured in the exhibit included the Red Queen's dress, chair, wig, glasses, and scepter; the White Queen's dress, wig and a small model of her castle; the Mad Hatter's suit, hat, wig, chair and table; Alice's dress and battle armor (to slay the Jabberwocky). Other props were the "DRINK ME" bottles, the keys, an "EAT ME" pastry, and stand-in models of the White Rabbit and March Hare. A nighttime party area at Disney California Adventure theme park was created, called "Mad T Party". Video games On July 23, 2009, Disney Interactive Studios announced that an Alice in Wonderland video game, developed by French game studio Étranges Libellules, would be released in the same week as the film for the Wii, Nintendo DS, and Microsoft Windows. The soundtrack was composed by video games music composer Richard Jacques. The Wii, DS, and PC versions were released on March 2, 2010. Disney Interactive released the game Alice in Wonderland: A New Champion for iOS in 2013. ==Release==
Release
Theatrical Alice in Wonderland was theatrically released in the UK and the U.S., in Disney Digital 3D, RealD 3D, and IMAX 3D Prior to the release, the film was premiered at the Odeon Leicester Square in London on February 25, 2010, for The Prince's Foundation for Children and The Arts fundraiser where the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall attended. However, exhibitors protested that Alice would be less threatened by the World Cup than other titles. With some confusion, a small number of copies were put on shelves a week before schedule in smaller stores, but were quickly removed, although a handful of copies were confirmed purchased ahead of schedule. In its first week of release (June 1–6, 2010), it sold 2,095,878 DVD units (equivalent to $35,441,297) and topped the DVD sales chart for two continuous weeks. By May 22, 2011, it had sold 4,313,680 units ($76,413,043). It failed to crack the 2010 top ten DVDs list in terms of units sold, but reached 10th place on that chart in terms of sales revenue. ==Reception==
Reception
Box office Alice in Wonderland grossed $334.1 million in North America and $691.2 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $1.025 billion against a budget of $200 million. and the second-highest-grossing film with Anne Hathaway in the cast. It is also the 50th-highest grossing film ever made (subject to regular change). Additionally, it is the second-highest-grossing children's book adaptation (worldwide, as well as in North America and outside North America separately). On its first weekend, the film made $220.1 million worldwide, marking the second-largest opening ever for a movie not released during the summer or the holiday period (behind The Hunger Games), the fourth-largest for a Disney-distributed film and the fourth-largest among 2010 films. It dominated for three consecutive weekends at the worldwide box office. In North America, Alice in Wonderland is the forty-fourth-highest-grossing film out of the top 100 when adjusted for inflation. It is also the second-highest-grossing film of 2010, behind Toy Story 3, ranking number one and setting a new March opening-day record. Alice earned $116.1 million on its opening weekend, breaking the record for the largest opening weekend in March (previously held by 300), Alice had the seventeenth-highest-grossing opening weekend ever and the fifth-largest among 3D films. Opening-weekend grosses originating from 3D showings were $81.3 million (70% of total weekend gross). That broke the record for the largest opening-weekend 3D grosses but it was later topped by The Avengers ($108 million). It had the largest weekend per-theater average of 2010 ($31,143 per theater) and the largest for a PG-rated film. It broke the IMAX opening-weekend record by earning $12.2 million on 188 IMAX screens, with an average of $64,197 per site. The record was first overtaken by Deathly Hallows – Part 2 ($15.2 million). Alice closed in theaters on July 8, 2010, with $334.2 million. Outside North America, Alice is the thirteenth-highest-grossing film, the highest-grossing 2010 film, the fourth-highest-grossing Disney film, the second-highest-grossing film starring Johnny Depp Japan was the film's highest-grossing country after North America, with $133.7 million, followed by the UK, Ireland and Malta ($64.4 million), and France and the Maghreb region ($45.9 million). Critical response On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 51% of 275 critics have given the film a positive review, with an average rating of 5.7/10. The website's consensus is: "Tim Burton's Alice sacrifices the book's minimal narrative coherence—and much of its heart—but it's an undeniable visual treat." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average rating of "A−" on an A+ to F scale. Todd McCarthy of Variety praised it for its "moments of delight, humor and bedazzlement", but continued, "But it also becomes more ordinary as it goes along, building to a generic battle climax similar to any number of others in CGI-heavy movies of the past few years." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly said, "But Burton's Disneyfied 3-D Alice in Wonderland, written by the girl-power specialist Linda Woolverton, is a strange brew indeed: murky, diffuse, and meandering, set not in a Wonderland that pops with demented life but in a world called Underland that's like a joyless, bombed-out version of Wonderland. It looks like a CGI head trip gone post apocalyptic. In the film's rather humdrum 3-D, the place doesn't dazzle—it droops." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film three out of four stars and writing, "Alice plays better as an adult hallucination, which is how Burton rather brilliantly interprets it until a pointless third act flies off the rails." Several reviews criticized the decision to turn Alice into a "colonialist entrepreneur" at the end of the film setting sail for China. Accolades At the 83rd Academy Awards, the film received three nominations: Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, and Best Visual Effects winning the former two. At the 64th British Academy Film Awards, the film received five nominations and won two awards for Best Costume Design and Best Makeup and Hair. It received three nominations at the 68th Golden Globe Awards including Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for Johnny Depp, but did not win any of those. It further received nominations for five Satellite Awards and Saturn Awards each (winning two of them), four Critics' Choice Movie Awards (winning two), and a Grammy Award nomination. ==Legacy==
Legacy
After its release, the film drove about in retail sales for Disney, including home video and merchandise sales. Since the release and success of the movie, Walt Disney Pictures has announced the development of several live-action adaptations of their Animated Classics series. Walt Disney Theatrical was in early talks with Burton and screenwriter Linda Woolverton, who had written stage adaptions of The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Aida, and Lestat, to develop the property as a Broadway musical set to premiere in London. Rob Ashford was attached to direct and choreograph. As of 2013, no further developments had been made. ==Sequel==
Sequel
A sequel, Alice Through the Looking Glass, was released on May 27, 2016, directed by James Bobin. Burton returned to produce it, and Woolverton returned to write a screenplay. Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, and Helena Bonham Carter reprised their roles in the film, with the addition of Rhys Ifans and Sacha Baron Cohen. ==See also==
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