From Miserable to Fantastical: Helena Bonham Carter Going ‘Through the Looking Glass’

The Red Queen will return to Wonderland from banishment.

At least, she’s in negotiations to do so. According to the New York Daily News, Helena Bonham Carter has entered final negotiations to reprise her role as the Red Queen in the upcoming Through the Looking Glass, sequel to 2010’s fantastical Alice in Wonderland. The film is currently set to be released in May of 2016. It will reunite Carter with much of the original cast, including Mia Wasikowska and Johnny Depp. Tim Burton will be replaced as director by James Bobin, who was recently at the helm of Muppets Most Wanted.

Helena Bonham Carter has long been a respected actress. She has unique talent for creating iconic character performances, often doing so in collaborative efforts with domestic partner, Tim Burton. In 2012, Bonham Carter played the equally shady Madame to Sacha Baron Cohen’s Monsieur Thernardier in Les Miserables, calling upon vocal talents she had used to great effect as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street five years prior. Sadly, the lady was not as happy with her performance in Les Mis. She even went so far as to swear off any possibility of stage musical performance in the future.

Before that, Ms. Bonham Carter lived up to her casting as Bellatrix Lestrange in the Harry Potter film series. She brought to glorious life one of the most evil and sadistic characters found in the book series, to great fan acclaim. In addition to these, Helena Bonham Carter has earned herself two Academy Award nominations for her performaces in The King’s Speech and The Wings of the Dove. She has taken turns in projects as differing as the costumed drama of Lady Jane and the dark, gritty underworld tale of Fight Club.

The presence of Helena Bonham Carter, although not set in stone, would be a great asset to the sequel, which certainly has its task laid out before it. Alice in Wonderland made over $1,000,000,000 worldwide, and those results have most likely garnered an even higher budget for Looking Glass (Wonderland had an approximate budget of $200,000,000). With high box office aspirations, star power is essential, and Carter’s name would only add to the massive cultural draw of headliners Depp and Wasikowska. In additon, she might be reunited with her musical cast mate of twice over: Sacha Baron Cohen is reportedly in talks to join the cast as a currently unnamed villian alongside her scarlet-haired evil queen. Let’s hope the negotiations go smoothly, and don’t become as dramatic as a Wonderland chess match.

Photo courtesy fansshare.com