It’s the battle of the blonde former TV stars! Sarah Michelle Gellar, who was originally set to star in Wonderland, has been replaced in the project by Maggie Grace, who most viewers know as whiny, shot-out-of-nowhere Shannon from Lost. Gellar, of course, kicked ass as Buffy the Vampire Slayer for seven seasons. Clearly Gellar’s former TV character would win in this battle, but that’s not the fight we’re talking about here.
The Page Six article doesn’t specify why Gellar left the project, but there have been rumors lately that she might be returning to television sometime soon. The article also includes the classic line “Grace was always director Marcus Nispel’s second choice, according to sources. Ouch! That’s like a husband telling his second wife she was always his second choice, but she just had to wait her turn until the first one didn’t work out.
The premise for Wonderland actually sounds pretty awesome. It picks up a few years after Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, and finds our heroine a disturbed young woman recovering from the death of her parents. She, of course, returns to the land of Mad Hatter and the Queen of Hearts, and likely finds some truly disturbing adventures there. If thought the Cheshire Cat in Disney’s Alice in Wonderland was creepy, imagine what they could have done with a PG-13 rating.
I don’t have much of an opinion on whether Grace will be any good in the role—her character annoyed me on Lost, but the actress did a convincing job of falling in love with the true badass of the show, Sayid, as well as being a spoiled little rich girl. It might be interesting to see Alice re-imagined as a little brat all grown up, except instead of a brat unable to take care of herself in the real world, she knows Wonderland in and out. I’m not saying I understand how this could be pulled off; it would just be awesome.
