Sabrina Carpenter’s Alice in Wonderland reboot proves Hollywood’s out of ideas

Brace yourselves, there’s another reboot coming from Hollywood. 

It’s a new (I use that term loosely) Alice in Wonderland, but this time it’s a musical starring Sabrina Carpenter, reportedly in the title role. 

Another remake no one asked for, or wanted. 

As a fan of the pop sensation, I would usually be jumping for joy at the prospect of her returning to her acting roots, especially in a role where she will presumably be unleashing her renowned vocal talent too.

But the announcement of a musical inspired by the 19th-century Lewis Carroll book series has left me incredibly underwhelmed.

I believe Sabrina is better than yet another adaptation, no matter how much we’ll inevitably hear about how the piece has been reimagined or retooled for modern audiences.

With all the singer’s star power, all her cultural capital, she could be choosing to do something far more exciting and original than this.

We’ve seen her willing to be confrontational with her album artwork and make political statements through her performances, so this feels like a bland choice from the Polly Pocket of pop.

It’s no secret that audiences are getting increasingly fed up with the onslaught of remakes, sequels and adaptations being released.

Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein has ruffled book fans’ feathers, not least because there’s yet another film about the legendary monster due next year, while Emerald Fennel’s Wuthering Heights adaptation has been met with horror over the Charli XCX soundtrack and casting choices in Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi.

The Harry Potter TV series has been a controversial choice for a myriad of reasons. 

Meanwhile, Disney has reportedly put the brakes on their endless churning out of live action remakes – and having watched Lilo and Stitch, I can see why. 

That’s not to say all remakes are bad, Disney’s 2016 adaptation of The Jungle Book was widely well-received, but that was at the very start of cinema’s collapse into ‘safe bets’ and familiar films, constantly repeated. 

The almost shot-for-shot Lion King three years later was a continuation of that slippery slope. 

And Carroll’s work has been mined for content often, and recently. 

We last saw Alice in Wonderland on the big screen in Tim Burton’s live-action adaptations, the first of which proved one of Disney’s biggest successes, grossing over $1billion (£762,391,000) in 2010.

However, just six years later, interest in the sequel dropped dramatically and it bombed in cinemas, grossing around $300million (£263million) and reportedly losing the studio $70million (£61million).

If it wants to reverse that trend, Sabrina’s version will need to be decidedly different from the Tim Burton version and Disney’s animated classic to even begin to be accepted.

This is where making it a musical might have the most appeal, but that genre in particular has suffered from a lack of originality and over-reliance on existing IP in Hollywood (looking at you, 2019’s Cats).

Joker 2 dodged the musical label as much as possible and still flopped terribly, and Mean Girls: The Musical proved a middling box office entry that was never going to live up to the 2004 cult classic.

Wicked’s success is evidence that a musical can work, but I’d argue the Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo-led two-parter is the exception that proves the rule. 

Even if it is technically a Wizard of Oz retelling, Wicked was a beloved stage show for over two decades before it finally made it to the big screen – and challenged the lore of the characters enough to not feel too much like a straight remake. 

This new Alice in Wonderland risks having more in common with Timothee Chalamet’s Wonka, which arguably didn’t market itself as a musical but snuck in several big numbers for good measure. The film was a modest box office success but in just two years has largely been forgotten in the cultural zeitgeist. 

Ultimately, this is where I fear any adaptation musical is likely to land – a disregarded foray into song and dance that ultimately fails to capture the magic of its predecessors. 

Sabrina reportedly pitched an Alice in Wonderland film in 2020, just as she was breaking away from Disney, but her star power wasn’t strong enough to get it off the ground. 

Now that it is, I would have hoped she would have pitched something more original than a third adaptation of the beloved classic book. 

Very little is known about this new film beyond Sabrina’s involvement as both a star and producer, and that it will be a new musical (potentially featuring songs written by her).

She has acted before, in Netflix’s Tall Girl and The Hate U Give, rising to fame in 2014 with her lead role in Disney’s Girl Meets World, but her acting ambitions have taken a backseat to her singing career – even if her recent hosting stints on Saturday Night Live have proven her comedic chops. 

Lorene Scafaria is set to write and direct the remake, with credentials such as Hustlers and Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, suggesting a more direct approach. 

However, Lorene is also linked to an A24 project, which will likely be far edgier.

Maybe Sabrina Carpenter would have more success attaching herself to a film like that, to get out her comfort zone. 

Of all the classic novels, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has the biggest potential to be an out-there psychedelic musical adventure, as long as Sabrina and the studio are willing to avoid playing it safe.

But the signs aren’t good. 

So I am begging them to go all in. Make it unhinged, make it unashamedly a musical, and, after subjecting audiences to countless remakes, please, make it different. 

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk. 

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