Zenescope now also doing a live action version of “Wonderland”

I’ve discussed my love of Zenescope before. Now, in addition to their Grimm Fairy Tales Animated Series, it looks like there is going to be a live action television series based on their series of Wonderland books.

News out of San Diego Comic Con yesterday is that after a 6-way bidding war between Warner Brothers, CBS, Fox, ABC and Sony, Lionsgate has emerged as the winner with the rights to adapt Zenescope’s Wonderland line of stories into a live action television show. Brian Robbins, the producer on Smallville, will serve as the show’s Executive Producer. Zenescope writers Joe Brusha and Ralph Tedesco will serve a co-executive producers.

No real details have emerged yet about when or where this will air, or who will star. Lionsgate has said though that they envision an established actress to play Alice and a fresh-faced newcomer to play her daughter Calie. Lionsgate does have a pretty good track record when it comes to television, being responsible for Anger Management on FX, Nashville this fall on ABC, and NBC’s new Dane Cook comedy Next Caller.

I for one greatly look forward to this, but I think it will all depend on casting and where it ends up, as well as the budget. The amount of sex and violence in these books is pretty up there, and it might be hard to do something like this on say a CBS. It might be more suited to a FX or SyFy, or even a Showtime. They will have to pick some good actresses to fill out those costumes for it to really work. The budget will have to fairly decent, as the costumes and set design will have to be fairly elaborate to properly capture that Zenescope feeling, and the special effects will have to be up to par to create believable monsters like the Jabberwocky and the Cheshire Cat on a weekly basis. And frankly, the grimm, gritty fairy tale world is pretty packed on television right now, what with the CW’s Supernatural, NBC’s Grimm, and ABC’s Once Upon a Time, all of which are pretty much riding Zenescope’s coattails anyway. So it will nice to see how the original fares. If you can call Zenescope the original gritty take on Alice, even though American McGee did it first in the in the early 00’s, he didn’t have a well written and beautifully drawn comic book series with an epic backstory that was full of sexy ladies in it.

JohnScott is the proud owner of a life size replica Captain Kirk Chair. He is a hoarder of Comic Books, Transformers, and Star Trek action figures. He attended Space Camp as an adult. He has taken vacations to the closing of the Star Trek Experience and the final night Shuttle launch. He has been known to yell at his television when the kids can't put together the damn statue in the Shrine of the Silver Monkey. When not writing for InsufficientScotty, he is a Software Engineer for a major healthcare communications company. You can Email or follow on Twitter @NotEnoughScotty or Facebook