Burton Finds His Alice in Oz

Doctor, I keep having this dream where I fall down a rabbit hole….

We’ve talked before about Tim Burton’s planned Alice in Wonderland adaptation. Well, now there’s some casting news–according to, Australian actress Mia Wasikowska is in final talks to take on the role.

Wasikowska’s age is listed as eighteen on her IMDb page. She’s probably best known to US audiences for her role as Sophie on the HBO series In Treatment.  Prior to that, she was on Australian television in All Saints and made several films in her native country. She’s in the upcoming World War II drama Defiance and just finished shooting a role in Mira Nair’s Amelia Earhart biopic.

I admit I know next nothing about Wasikowska other than the above, so I’m not prepared to applaud or condemn her casting. But I’d lean more towards the applaud side for no other reason than that Tim Burton usually does a pretty good job of finding the right people for his movies, so I’m willing to trust him on this one. At least it’s not Dakota Fanning. That’s what I feared.

Burton’s Alice will be a mix of live action and performance capture, and will be released in 3D. Linda Woolverton (known for writing The Lion King) will write the script. THR says filming is set to begin in November, which is sooner than the early 2009 that had been originally listed.