Even though Alice’s adventures down the rabbit-hole and through the looking-glass have been used as a launching point for dozens of adaptations since Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland first saw print in 1865, Syfy was focused on overcoming one major hurdle before it could go forward with producing their own reinterpretation of Lewis Carroll’s classic.
“Alice in Wonderland basically doesn’t work [on film] because it’s about a dumb girl that falls down a hole,” said Mark Stern, Syfy’s Executive Vice Director for Original Programming, at last month’s Syfy Vancouver Press Tour. He added that the network has discussed finding a way to successfully adapt the classic for a modern audience since production began on their 2007 hit Tin Man, the surreal re-imagining of The Wizard of Oz.
Syfy’s Alice will debut in less than a month, on December 6th, but Pop Culture Zoo got a first-look at the series, as well a chance to join an interview panel featuring Stern, director Nick Welling, and actors Caterina Scorsone (Alice) and Matt Frewer (who plays the White Knight). Four clips of the mini-series were shown, proving that the network has found a way to tell a story about more than a dumb girl that simply falls down a hole.
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This version follows a twenty-something Alice into a parallel-universe Wonderland after a back-alley confrontation with a gang of ‘Suits’, led by the White Rabbit. She enters a trippy casino-world where captive people’s memories are erased and their emotions are drained and bottled (leaving them mere “Oysters”), under the rule of the Queen of Hearts.
Willing’s Alice is set in a very modern Wonderland, with a very independent, proactive Alice (who also knows martial arts) at the story’s center. During the panel interview, director Nick Welling offered his take on what separates this Alice from others:
“This is the Wonderland that’s 150 years on from that Wonderland that you read about as a children’s story…. Just as we have evolved 150 years, so to has Wonderland. And not all for the better.”
[singlepic id=964 w=180 float=right]The key to this adaptation was abandoning Carroll’s written approach of interconnected vignettes, and finding a tighter narrative that takes place in a very grown-up, alternate universe Wonderland, chock-full of bizarre drugs, thugs, and lots and lots of gambling.
From the clips shown, this looks to be Wonderland by way of Casino Royale on a surreal drug binge. The opening credits feature shots from a casino floor – poker chips, a spinning roulette wheel a craps table – spliced with shots of a drug laboratory, with close-ups of different pharmaceuticals being prepared.
Re-imagined characters featured in the clips included the White Rabbit (Allan Gray) — the only guy since Steven Seagal to make ponytails look intimidating — as well as an interesting scene with the Dormouse, (played by Nancy Robertson). In the scene, the dormouse is standing behind a podium –with a giant stock ticker whirring in the background — as a mob of dazed ‘Oysters’ listen to his sales pitch for Clear Conscience, a red liquid drug described as “the latest wonder of wonders from the remarkable wonder of all wonders, the Heart’s Casino.”
There was also a scene shown where Alice approaches Hatter (Andrew Lee Potts), a rebel fighter in Wonderland.
The mini-series features an eclectic cast, including Kathy Bates as the Queen of Hearts, Tim Curry as Dodo, “the resistance leader”, Harry Dean Stanton as the Caterpillar, and Matt Frewer as the White Knight.
Writer/director Willing was chosen for the project after spearheading Tin Man, but he also has a unique perspective on Wonderland since he directed NBC’s 1999’s star-studded television mini-series Alice in Wonderland, starring Whoopi Goldberg, Ben Kingsley, Gene Wilder and Christopher Lloyd. He talked about the problems of adapting the story, and how his differences in approaching the story has changed from 1999 to Syfy’s 2009 interpretation:
“[Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland] doesn’t have a story at all… unlike The Wizard of Oz, which has a beginning, middle and end, [and] a quest.”
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“It’s delicious stuff, but it’s not a gripping story if you’re watching four hours of television. It’s a really hard task. And so what you end up doing when you make a version of Alice in Wonderland that is faithful to the book, is you put lots of very famous people in there. So that all the grown-ups go, ‘Oh look, is that Whoopi Goldberg?’ And then you dress it up with as many special effects and… eye candy as you can, so to distract people who are looking for an emotional hook — because they won’t get one…. [The book] is still a wonderful experience, but it’s just not a story in a classic sense.“
“This time, it was a challenge to create an emotional and gripping story, a thriller, also there is a love story — a sort of twisted love story — and all those things have come together in the spirit of a modern Wonderland [that] I hope is nevertheless gripping and connects with a modern audience.”
Willing and Scorsone also talked about the comparisons that are sure to be arise from Tim Burton’s in-development Alice in Wonderland, which will be released in Spring of 2010.
“It could not be more different,” said Willing. “We are out there – not to say that [Burton’s] isn’t out there, but [he’s] in a classical way.”
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Scorsone added that Burton’s will be foucsed on playing up the big-budget visual experience, since it will be playing in Disney IMAX 3-D, but she did add the two will likely work together and are obviously linked.
“Ours is Syfy 2-D, “ joked Willing, “So it’s a little more advanced, isn’t it?”
Assuming the mini-series is a hit, Willing, Scorsone and Frewer all seemed enthusiastically onboard, when the idea of an ongoing ‘Alice’ series was mentioned.
Some photos were provided of the costumes and props on display, including the armor Matt Frewer donned to play the White Knight (jokingly referred to by him as ‘The Volkswagen”), a psychedelic Vegas showgirl uniform, a Flamingo-mobile and a creepy rubber rabbit mask that wouldn’t look out of place in a David Lynch flick.
Alice debuts Sunday December 6th, and the conclusion airs on December 7th.