The cast for the next Tim Burton movie, a 3-D live-action/CGI animated version of Alice In Wonderland, was announced today and in keeping with the perfect movie partnership they discovered 18 years ago, Johnny Depp will be playing the Mad Hatter. 

If any story for a movie is appropriate to be filmed in 3-D, it would be Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.  The live-action/CGI is the method used in the recent Angelina Jolie movie Beowulf and it’s a good combination of animation and live acting for the fantasy and allegory of the classic “children’s” book.  Disney is still the distributor, but you can bet with Burton at the helm, it won’t be your mother’s Alice!

Depp and Burton have been one of the best pairings in popular cinema since they teamed up for Edward Scissorhands in 1990.  Ed Wood, in ’94, was the beginning of crazy, Depp brilliance, it just wasn’t quite appreciated yet and flopped at the box office.  Burton’s darkness and Depp’s quirky intesity played perfectly together in Sleepy Hollow, breathing new life and interest into a much played story.  And while Depp’s Willie Wonka was a little creepy, Burton’s dark but colorful rendering of his Chocolate Factory was captivating.  Sweeney Todd was just genius, from both of them.  Even Corpse Bride was intriguing and fun to look at, whether you’re into animated films or not.

It pretty much went without saying when Burton signed on for this project that Depp would take the Mad Hatter role, but now it’s official.  Also official is Mia Wasikowska, a Heath Ledger memorial scholarship recipient for up and coming Australian actors, as Alice, and Matt Lucas, of Little Britain and Little Britain USA, doing double as Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Alice in Wonderland is currently in pre-production and is scheduled for release in March 2010.

Information from IMDB and Reuters

Photo credit: Fame Pictures and Lenny’s Alice in Wonderland Site