Zanuck Talks "Alice," "Dark Shadows"

Producer Richard D. Zanuck has recently talked about Tim Burton's current film, Alice in Wonderland, as well as a possible future project for the director: a big-screen adaptation of the TV series Dark Shadows.

In one interview, Zanuck discussed Burton's decision to shoot Alice in 2D and eventually convert it to 3D in post-production. Director James Cameron, who is also involved with the new 3D movement in cinema, criticized this decision, saying "It doesn't make sense to shoot in 2-D and convert to 3D."


Zanuck: I'm making a very interesting film now, called Alice in Wonderland with Tim Burton. And we're shooting it in Culver City, and we're almost through with our part of it, which is shooting the live actors but they'll be animated. It's the first picture that will combine motion capture, with live actors and animation, all in the same frame. It'll be quite amazing.

What can you say about Tim Burton's vision for that?

Zanuck: It's everything you could imagine. You put Tim Burton in a world where his vision can run wild and you'll get the result that we're getting. I mean, when she goes into the rabbit hole. It's a dream actually. Her dream. And if it's anything that comes from her mind, and we're very faithful to the Lewis Carrol book. But it's Tim Burton being able to really crank up his wild imagination. In kind of a dark way too, as the original material was dark and scary.

James Cameron said that he didn't understand why you would shoot it in 2-D and convert to 3-D. Why not shoot it in 3-D?

Zanuck: The 3-D cameras are very clumsy quite frankly, compared to 2-D cameras. And it would have cost a lot more, we would have had more crew involved. I didn't see what Cameron said but, I was convinced, and so is Tim, seeing test after test of pictures that have been released in 3-D, shot in 2-D and you can't tell the difference. I would defy Jim Cameron to see the tests I saw and point out which was 2-D and which was 3-D.


In a second article, Zanuck talked about an upcoming project of his: Dark Shadows, which may be another Tim Burton-Johnny Depp collaboration.

In a brief video interview (click this link to view it), Zanuck states that filming may begin as soon as next summer in London. He also discusses Depp's obsession with the soap opera when he was a schoolboy.