‘Alice in Wonderland’ With Machine Guns?

All this recent talk about Watchmen had journalists forgetting to ask Zack Snyder about anything else during the press rounds for his upcoming film 300 but it seems Snyder has a little something else up his sleeve.

The Hollywood Reporter tells us the director has set up his first project with Warner Bros. Pictures under his new deal with the studio and his production house Cruel and Unusual Films. The pic is an action fantasy titled Sucker Punch, which he is eyeing as a directorial project for himself. He will co-write the script with Steve Shibuya, adapting it from his own original short story.

The story is set in the 1950’s, and follows a girl who is confined to a mental institution by her evil stepfather, who intends to have her lobotomized in five days. While there, she imagines an alternative reality to hide her from the pain, and in that world, she begins planning her escape, needing to steal five objects to help get her out before she is deflowered by a vile man.

Snyder described the world as “an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ with machine guns,” blending such elements as dragons, B-52 bombers and brothels. Music will play a key role.

“A while ago I had written a script for myself and there was a sequence in it that made me think, ‘How can I make a film that can have action sequences in it that aren’t limited by the physical realities that normal people are limited by, but still have the story make sense so it’s not, and I don’t mean to be mean, like a bullshit thing like Ultraviolet or something like that?’ ” Snyder said. “And also, I was really inspired by the worlds of movies like Moulin Rouge, which is modern but at the same time timeless.”

However, this wouldn’t be Synder’s next outing as that appears to be Watchmen, which is currently rumored to be eyeing a summer 2007 production start.