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.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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