According to Variety, Muppets director James Bobin has begun early talks with Disney to take on the sequel to Tim Burton’s wildly successful adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. The film is being developed under the working title Into The Looking Glass.
The Wrap cautions that the deal is not locked in yet. Bobin has the support of Disney, but still needs the thumbs up from not only the sequel’s producers, Joe Roth and Suzaane and Jennifer Todd, but from Johnny Depp, the superstar draw expected to reprise his role as The Mad Hatter. Variety reports that Tim Burton could return as a co-producer.
James Bobin (Da Ali G Show, Flight of the Conchords), made his directorial debut for Disney with The Muppet Movie, and is presently wrapping up it’s sequel, The Muppets…Again!.
Lewis Carroll wrote a sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, called Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, so it’s not as though a movie sequel would be venturing into wholly uncharted waters. The Tim Burton film did gross over $1 billion worldwide, but it reviews of the film were mixed. Many people felt the popularity was based more on the 3-D craze popularized by Avatar in 2009 (Alice debuted in 2010).
Disney is certainly eyeing an even larger gross with a more kid-friendly sequel, and is counting on the return of both of it’s original stars, Johnny Depp and Mia Wasikowska as Alice. They’ve also brought back original Alice scribe Linda Wooverton to pen the sequel. Wooverton also wrote the upcoming Angelina Jolie fantasy Maleficent.
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