Movies
American McGee’s ‘Alice’ Basically Back at Square One
It has now been over four years since the adaptation of the hit video game “American McGee’s Alice” – simply known as Alice – was announced. The project has gone through many hands including the infamous Wes Craven and has listed Sarah Michelle Gellar as the star, which she still claims she’d love to do although it looks like we have some grim news. Every single time it looks like the film might get off the ground, it comes to a screeching halt. Now Scott Faye, the producer of “Max Payne” and the upcoming adaptation, talked with the official American McGee blog about the status of the project. Read on for the skinny.
Interview from official blog:
“The Alice project is presently in “turnaround” from Universal Studios,” Producer Scott Faye tells the American McGee blog. “ Jon and Erich Hoeber have written a very compelling feature film screenplay adaptation of the Alice game. Their screenplay will certainly serve as a jumping off point as we find a new studio home for the project. In terms of the realistic chances of seeing the Alice project being produced, all I can say is that I have invested (along with Julie Yorn and Karen Lauder, my producing partners on the project) a lot of time and effort in this project. We will get it made. I offer my eight year effort to get the best version of the Max Payne film produced as proof of my tenacity as a film producer. Every film produced is a challenge. The major film studios are producing fewer movies every year, so to have one of them be yours is a very special experience. On the positive side, the Alice in Wonderland mythology is wonderfully compelling, and is an indelible concept in the minds of studio executives and the movie going public.”
Faye also chats a bit about Sarah Michelle Gellars involvement. “Sarah is not currently attached to the project. Her initial involvement was the result of a very talented and effective member of her management team who became aware of the project and pursued on Sarah’s behalf.”
It gets even worse from here as FRIDAY THE 13TH and TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE director Marcus Nispel isn’t attached to the project anymore.
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Faye also chats a bit about where the script stands and what he feels about the current adaptation.
“As I’ve referenced above, Jon and Erich Hoeber have written a very compelling feature film adaptation of the Alice game. The Hoebers have been working with me on the Alice project longer than anyone with the exception of my producing partner Karen Lauder. To be perfectly honest, the script still needs a little bit of work. The downtime since the Hoebers turned in their last draft has allowed me to establish a bit of creative objectivity. I suspect that the next draft of the screenplay will allow the project to take a substantial leap forward toward production.”
SYNOPSIS: Ten years after she tumbled through the looking-glass and into Wonderland, Alice now resides inside a mental asylum. After her parents are killed in a tragic fire, the young girl grows up to become a disturbed young woman. After failing to convince people that her visit to Wonderland was indeed real, Alice is given a second chance to return to this strange realm. Equipped with courage, a keen appetite for the bizarre and a lethal array of transmogrified toys, she’ll penetrate the strongholds of her enemies, confront the forces of evil and put the wicked Queen of Hearts in her place.
Exclusives
‘Lady Death’ Exclusive First Look – Kiah Roache-Turner’s New World War II Action-Horror Movie
The director of fan favorites including Wyrmwood and Beast of War, director Kiah Roache-Turner is back with World War II action-horror film Lady Death, and we’ve got the first look.
Lady Death is currently in production outside Adelaide, South Australia, we’ve learned. The upcoming horror movie, it’s interesting to note, lives in the same heightened, epic and gore-splattered WWII universe as Kiah Roache-Turner’s recent shark attack movie Beast of War!
Masha Basman stars as ‘Lady Death’ with Robert Maaser as ‘Hans Bothman.’
In Lady Death, a crack team of British Commandos are forced into an unholy alliance, when lost in a primeval forest on the Eastern Front, with Soviet sniper, the legendary ‘Lady Death’ (newcomer Masha Basman), and two demented SS officers – and twins – played in gleeful dual roles by German actor Robert Maaser (Blood & Gold, Ballerina).
Together the unlikely team must navigate the perils of the forest, including its most ferocious residents: wolves, born of an ancient bloodline, horrifically outsized, led by a giant alpha and remorselessly hunting as a pack. Only with Lady Death – herself an apex predator, and inspired by the real-life heroine Lyudmila Pavlichenko, who notched some 309 Nazi kills during the war – do the team have any chance of surviving the forested hellscape.
Kiah Roache-Turner tells Bloody Disgusting, “There’s something wonderfully cinematic about throwing a legendary sniper, a squad of commandos, Nazi villains and giant wolves into the same story and seeing what survives. Lady Death is exactly the sort of movie I love making — ambitious, dangerous, funny in all the wrong places and completely unafraid to get blood all over the screen.”
The cast includes newcomer Masha Basman as ‘Lyudmila’/’Lady Death’, Xavier Molyneux (Amazon’s Bloodaxe, Take My Hand) as ‘Billy’, Bart Edwards (Netflix’s The Witcher) as ‘Monty’, Robert Maaser (Ballerina, Blood & Gold) in dual roles as Nazi twins ‘Hans Bothman’ and ‘Gunner Mengele’, Jake Ryan (Netflix’s War Machine) as ‘Smiddy’, CJ Bloomfield (Mortal Kombat franchise, Furiosa) as ‘Butch’, George Pullar (Evil Dead Burn, Posthumous) as ‘Bird’ and Sam Parsonson (Beast of War, Fear Below) as ‘Cunningham.’
The movie is being produced by Blake Northfield and Michelle Krumm for Bronte Studios (Beast of War, Wyrmwood franchise). The production team includes Head Of Production, Sandra Tahmasby Baxter (Beast of War, Take My Hand, Wyrmwood – Apocalypse), director of photography Jonathan Baker (Talk to Me), production designer Rachael Gates (Wolf Creek: Legacy), SFX coordinator John Sanderson (Mortal Kombat, Wolf Creek: Legacy), stunt coordinator Danny Baldwin (Beast of War), hair, make-up and prosthetic designer Billie Weston (Apex, Elvis, Danger Close: Battle of Long Tan), costume designer Tracey Rose Sparke (Primitive War, Beast of War). Roache-Turner also edits all his movies.
Executive Producers include Bronte Studios, Kiah Roache-Turner, The Post Lounge, Todd Brown, Bart Edwards, Calum Gray, Max Pirkis, Jeff Harrison, Ari Harrison (Umbrella Entertainment), Chandler Heinz Laun and Jaswinder Singh Ahluwalia (Obsidian Creek Capital) and Laura Stejskal (Winter Tree Productions).
Australian SFX outfit MEG Studios (Apex, Talk to Me, Furiosa) is bringing the wolfpack to terrifying life, together with Resin (Mortal Kombat, The Bluff, Elvis, Hotel Mumbai), who are handling the film’s VFX.
Financing for the movie comes through Obsidian Creek Capital, and Hinterland, with support from the South Australia Film Corporation.
Check out a few first look images below and expect more real soon.
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