It’s been more than five years since Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland took the global box office by storm, ultimately ranking as one of the few movies to make more than a billion dollars worldwide. It was inevitable that a sequel would be made, which is why Alice Through The Looking Glass is coming out next year, but only now do we know what the film is going to actually be about.
Yesterday, Disney hosted its huge live-action presentation as part of the D23 Expo in Anaheim, California, and it was during Alice Through The Looking Glass’ part of the show that the plot of the movie was revealed. We heard touches of the story as the project was making its way through development, but now it’s been made clear exactly what’s going on. The sequel will find Alice (Mia Wasikowska) return to the world of Underland and discover that things are going very wrong. As was revealed in a quick video presentation, the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) is "growing darker," and Alice is the only person or thing who can help before it’s too late.
In order to prevent the loss of her friend, Alice turns to Time himself (Sacha Baron Cohen), a peculiar creature who is part human, part clock. Despite a number of warnings about not being able to win in a race against time, and not being able to change the past, the titular heroine winds up going on a bit of a time travel adventure. During this special trip, she encounters younger versions of "the characters we know and love," and there will be some exploration into exactly how they came to be as we know them. Basically there’s an aspect of this sequel that will be part prequel.
Sacha Baron Cohen’s Time was the main new character put center stage during the Alice Through The Looking Glass presentation, but he’s not the only new face in the feature. Rhys Ifans will join the party as Zanik Hightopp, the Mad Hatter’s father, and he joins a number of returning castmembers including Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham, Alan Rickman, Stephen Fry, Michael Sheen and Timothy Spall. In addition to the plot and new character details, Disney also released two new posters for the feature, one with Mia Wasikowska’s Alice:
And the second featuring Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter:
Director James Bobin (The Muppets, Muppets Most Wanted) is behind the helm of Alice Through The Looking Glass, and you’ll be able to see the finished product in theaters on May 27, 2016.
