It appears to be all about Tim Burton‘s hybrid version of Alice in Wonderland recently, as multiple new images of the characters and some new concept art has been unleashed by Disney.

Yahoo! has the set of five new character images that Disney has released; featured is a new look at Alice (Mia Wasikowska), along with our first real look at Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen, Anne Hathaway as the White Queen, and Matt Lucas as Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Also, USA Today is presenting three new massive zoomable concept images — one you can see below, the others can be found by following the link.

The movie will mix live-action, CGI, and motion-capture technologies to create a fittingly wild and bizarre world — perfect for the imagination of Tim Burton. One thing that was not known, is that this new version is more of a sequel to Lewis Carroll‘s Through the Looking-Glass. The story will apparently pick up ten years later with Alice, now 17 years old, escaping a ritzy party and following a white rabbit down a hole, which brings her back to Wonderland. When she arrives, Alice does not remember her first visit as a young girl, but the beings of Wonderland — ready to fight back against the evil Queen — look to her to assist them.

Click over to check out the…interesting first looks!

Fast Company has a first look at what Helena Bonham Carter‘s character, Serena, might look like in Terminator Salvation. The image is an artist’s conceptual vision of the human/CGI combination special effects that will be used in the film.

Terminator Salvation is directed by McG and stars Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Moon Bloodgood, Bryce Dallas Howard, Anton Yelchin, and Common, with some voice over work by Linda Hamilton and may Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. In fact, this concept may be a peek at one of the options for Schwarzenegger’s T-800; maybe grab him for the voice and use Arnie-clone Roland Kickinger along with this technique for the look. Who knows.

Click over to the other side for a look at the image. Be warned, it may be considered a little bit of a spoiler image for some of you, so click cautiously. I hate spoilers and I was able to check it out with no problem, so it shouldn’t be too bad for anyone to look at, but I have not seen the movie yet and I could be very wrong. Also, make sure you click the above link to Fast Company to watch video interviews with McG.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Blu-ray Edition
Directed by Tim Burton
Starring Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, Sacha Baron Cohen
Paramount Home Entertainment
Release date: October 21, 2008

Deny it all you want, but deep down inside everyone loves musical theater. Everyone has at least one show where they’ve memorized all the songs, they find themselves humming the songs in the shower, they keep hidden in some deep pocket of their iPod. Me, I like lots of shows, but I had never heard any of the songs on this one until I saw this film in the theater. Now I’ve had the chance to revisit it, and I find myself humming about the worst pies in London, and can’t help but smile. At times hilarious, at times frightening, Sweeney Todd has a lot going for it, not the least of which is Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, and of course the skillful direction of Tim Burton.

Judging from films such as the Nightmare Before Christmas (mental note: add that to my Christmas watching list) and Corpse Bride, it seems that Tim Burton has a very deep love for musicals, and it shines through in this production. The design and look of the film is what you would expect from a Tim Burton film, full of dark and moody tones, but still with a sense of playfulness. It’s basically what we’ve come to see from his films, but he is able to bring his vision of London to life, and makes the film feel like a movie with song, rather than just someone filming the stage version, if you catch my drift.

A project that just sort of showed up and started adding big time cast names like Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, and Helena Bonham Carter — Tim Burton‘s Alice in Wonderland just keeps on getting better, now adding the likes of Crispin Glover, Alan Rickman, and Christopher Lee.

Technically, Christopher Lee isn’t official yet, but all signs seem to point to it being a sure thing. Crispin Glover will be playing the role of the Knave of Hearts, who’s put on trial for stealing the Queen of Heart’s (Bonham Carter) tarts, while Alan Rickman will play the hookah-smoking Caterpillar. Also recently announced, Michael Sheen (Frost/Nixon) will be playing the Cheshire Cat.

Reporting from the Wonderland set in Culver City, CA, Zack Roth (son of the film’s producer Joe Roth) said he got to see Depp in character as the Mad Hatter and that he looked “startlingly crazy.” Roth also said that he was told that screenwriter Linda Woolverton “added some socio-political context to the film’s narrative,” which is adapted from the classic Lewis Carroll tale. He also talked a little bit about the set itself…

As I’ve grown older, my fascination with movie stars has waned somewhat. I no longer actually care about who is playing what in what with who (except for Joshua Jackson in Fringe). However, there are some pieces of news that just thrill me from head to toe.

The fact that Helena Bonham Carter has joined her partner Tim Burton‘s 3D version of Alice in Wonderland is no real surprise. Put Burton on a film, she’ll be there with him. And for good reason, as she is pretty much the perfect actress to play a female lead in Burton’s style of movies.

But add to that the fact that Anne Hathaway is also joining the cast, and I get all twittery (no, not Twittery).