Alice, which has Marcus Nispel (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) attached as a director and Sarah Michelle Gellar (The Grudge) signed on as the lead heroine, has a completed script by Eric and Jon Hoeber (Montana). Universal Pictures will release the film, which could begin filming as early as this summer. Faye said the film should have a budget in the $40 million to $50 million range, which he said is a "big studio picture, but not a grande studio picture." If all goes well, the film is expected to hit the big screen in 2007.
Faye said that in Hollywood marketing terminology, Alice is a multi-quadrant film, which means it can theoretically open in any quarter of the year. He added that Nispel, who has a very clear visual idea of what Alice will be on screen, wanted to do the film for a price. This decision wasn’t based on the financial upside of making a movie for a more modest budget, but because the director likes to challenge himself creatively and because he believes he can do great things without a bloated budget.
"The script that we have now blends the spirit of the original work by Lewis Carroll with American McGee’s unique vision of the mythology to create a story that is very compelling," said Faye. "What makes this different from other situations is that we have our Alice and we have a director that has a very visceral sense of how this game world should look on the big screen."
