‘Alice Through The Looking Glass’ Celebrates Premiere on Hollywood Boulevard; Can Sequel beat ‘Alice In Wonderland’ $1B Earnings?

‘Alice Through The Looking Glass’ celebrated its premiere at Hollywood Boulevard’s El Capitan Theater on May 23. Several cast members graced the event including Anne Hathaway, Mia Wasikowska, and Johnny Depp. Critics are left wondering if the sequel to ‘Alice In Wonderland’ would be able to surpass its predecessor’s $1B earnings at the box office.

According to The Wrap, celebrities graced Hollywood Boulevard on May 23 to attend the film’s premiere at the El Capitan Theater. Johnny Depp, who plays the iconic Mad Hatter, greeted crowds of fans from the red carpet. Depp admitted, “To have it celebrated to such a degree that people come out and welcome you is always amazing.”

Anne Hathaway, who returned to the big screen as the White Queen, echoed Depp’s enthusiasm. She said, “I think right now, the biggest excitement is knowing how many fans that it has, and the second one is really wonderful.”

The sequel follows Alice Kinsleigh as she returns home to London following a three-year sailing expedition. After re-encountering Absolem, she is sent back to Underland through a magical looking glass. She finds that her friend the Mad Hatter is dying slowly from grief and attempts to save him by going back in time through the Chronosphere despite Time’s warnings.

Mia Wasikowska, who plays Alice, talked about her character’s struggle for empowerment in the sequel according to an article on Marie Claire. She said, “Even though expectations of her are very low in the real world, she kind of holds onto the fact that she is worth a lot more and she should be doing something she really loves.” She added that the real message of the film was breaking free of the past through acceptance of change.

The question of whether the upcoming film could surpass its predecessor’s massive box office earnings remains. According to The Numbers, ‘Alice In Wonderland’ had a budget of $200M but took in a whopping $1 billion in total sales - $334.1 from the domestic box office and $691.3 from the international box office.

In contrast, the sequel has a budget of $170 million. According to Collider, producer Suzanne Todd revealed that scenes requiring numerous visual effects required the biggest budget during production.

She added, “Costume-wise, the most expensive of the new costumes is the new Red Queen armor. But all of those costumes I’m going to say are more expensive that you would think… I mean, Colleen Atwood is obviously a genius. She won the Oscar for the first Alice and came back for the second Alice… Everything Colleen makes is spectacular. But yes, very expensive.”

‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’ is a fantasy adventure film directed by James Bobin and written for the big-screen by Linda Woolverton. It is intended as the sequel to Tim Burton’s ‘Alice In Wonderland’, released in 2010. The film is scheduled to premiere on May 27, 2016 in the United States.