Universal Developing Alice In Wonderland Movie Musical With Sabrina Carpenter

After the huge success of Wicked, Universal is setting its sights on another classic story, this time with Sabrina Carpenter in the starring role. The singer’s music career has exploded in recent years with hits like “Espresso”, but she got her start as an actress, with Carpenter’s breakout role being Girl Meets World, the Boy Meets World sequel series.

Universal is now developing a movie musical starring Carpenter that is inspired by Alice in Wonderland. The singer and actress will also have a behind-the-scenes role as a producer. Hustlers director Lorene Scafaria has signed on as director and writer.

Universal isn’t the only connection to Wicked that the upcoming Alice in Wonderland has. Marc Platt, who produced Wicked on Broadway as well as the big-screen adaptations, Wicked and Wicked: For Good, will be one of the producers on Carpenter’s next film alongside Leslie Morgenstein and Elysa Koplovitz Dutton. Other executives involved with the project include Universal’s Ryan Jones and Jacqueline Garell, and Mark Platt Productions’ Katie McNicol.

While Carpenter’s role in the Alice in Wonderland film hasn’t been revealed yet, the most likely possibility is that she’s playing the titular character of Alice. She held meetings with Universal last year to pitch her ideas for the film, which is considered a passion project.

The iconic story of Alice and her journey down the rabbit hole and into a surreal fantasy land began with the release of Lewis Carroll’s 1865 novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which was adapted into an animated film by Disney in 1951. The sequel to Carroll’s novel, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, was released in 1871.

Almost 60 years after the animated film became a hit, Disney dove back down the rabbit hole to create a live-action remake of Alice in Wonderland with the help of iconic director Tim Burton. Mia Wasikowska starred as Alice and Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter. The sequel, Alice Through the Looking Glass, was released six years later.

Even though the most well-known adaptations of Alice in Wonderland have come from Disney, the story is in the public domain, so any studio can create its own version, which Universal is doing after Wicked soared to $756.4 million at the box office against a $150 million budget.

The film has an 88% on Rotten Tomatoes and won Best Costume Design and Best Production Design at the Oscars, and Cinematic and Box Office Achievement at the Golden Globes.

The highly anticipated sequel, Wicked: For Good, will be released in theaters on November 21 to wrap up the story of Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Glinda (Ariana Grande) that Gregory Maguire created for the novel Wicked, which was turned into a Broadway musical.

The book is based on the world of Oz that L. Frank Baum introduced in his own novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. That was made possible because, like Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz is also in the public domain.

Not much is known about Sabrina Carpenter‘s version of Alice in Wonderland, but after Universal scored a hit with Wicked, the studio wants to replicate that success with a brand-new movie musical that it hopes will reach similar heights.