Some sad news off the circuit today, folks–apparently Sarah Michelle Gellar is no longer slated to be involved with the eventually upcoming American McGee version of Alice.  The slated director has also been overthrown, and even the script is getting revamped.

Producer Scott Faye had the following to say about it:

Faye said the story is being reworked and Gellar is no longer involved. Director Marcus Nispel (Friday the 13th) is also no longer attached. A new script is in development by original Alice scribes Jon and Erich Hoeberand and a new studio is expected to be announced in the future.

“I love the grown up Alice in a horror story version of Wonderland, and knew instinctively that the project would have a commercial appeal easily discerned by the film studios because the character and mythology are so deeply ingrained into the collective psyche,” said Faye.

I’m really rather gobsmacked by this development.  They’re talking almost nonchalantly about a total teardown. New cast, new director, new script, new STUDIO…oh.  Well, that might have something to do with it–a little bit of executive meddling can turn a movie into chopped hash faster than you can say “back end participation”.  Naturally, we don’t know the specific causes yet–they may just be dissatisfied with the current setup but I can’t imagine anyone else playing Alice much better than Buffy (if you said “Lindsay Lohan” in there just now give yourself one thousand bonus points and my undying respect) and I don’t know why they’re having script problems when American McGee already wrote  a perfectly solid script when they did the game like ten years ago.

Well, hopefully these changes they’re planning to make are intended to improve the movie.  I still look forward to seeing American McGee’s Alice–I just hope they don’t bungle the job by trying too hard.

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