“One thing Disney has focused on in recent years is the empowered heroine,” Horn says, before introducing Alice Through the Looking Glass.
11:39 a.m. Sean Bailey attempts to justify why the studio created a sequel to the billion-dollar-plus grossing Alice in Wonderland: “We always have to answer the quewtion: what’s an idea that warrants a return?”
Scheduled to hit theaters next May, director James Bobin, Alice Through the Looking Glass brings back all the first film’s stars — Mia Wasikowska as Alice, Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen and Anne Hathaway as the White Queen — and we meet a new addition to the cast: Sasha Baron Cohen as Time.
“With the introduction of time, there’s quite a bit of time travel in this film,’ Wasikowska said. “We get to see the characters at different times in their lives.”
In a sizzle reel for Alice, we see the character step through looking glass only to tumble through a doorway and into a cherry blossom tree—her dramatic entrance into a magical world. Alice is greeted by the White Queen, Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee who inform her the Mad Hatter has “gone darker.” She must travel back in time to save him.
From there, we discover Time lives in a castle and is a disgruntled personage with a handlebar mustache, a man bun, and more gold jewelry than Mr. T. “Time is someone extremely powerful. He’s not someone you want as your enemy,” Alice is informed.
Adds Baron-Cohen in character, “You cannot win in a race against Time.”