NBC is bringing Alice in Wonderland to the world of small screen dramas. The broadcaster is reportedly finalizing a deal right now to bring Lewis Caroll’s classic to their network with CSI creator Anthony Zuiker executive producing from a script by Whit Anderson. Naturally, this would not be a broadcaster’s unique take on a tiring concept without a significant twist.
While the buzz word has been ‘contemporary’ as of late, NBC’s Wonderland through ABC Studios will be set years after the events of the book. It will center on Alice and a new character named Clara. Perhaps more interesting is that the series seems to pit Clara against the now-queen. Clara will be tasked with waging war against Alice in an attempt to get her life back on track.
This is the second such project to use the classic novel as its source material as CW is developing Wunderland from the duo of McG and Chad Hodge. Deadline tells us that Lionsgate’s television unit has a similar-set series of their own based on more contemporary graphic interpretations on the matter. The question might not be ‘why’ so much as ‘what took so long’ as Tim Burton’s version of the property released to blockbuster-sized success over two years ago. Since that time, Once Upon a Time (now in its second season) showed that an audience would replay such a fantastical plot week after week suggesting that would be what changed.
Alice in Wonderland grossed $1.024 billion worldwide up on the big screen on a budget of $200 million–a feat that studios have been trying (and for the most part failing) to replicate in the month of March ever since.