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Entertainment Weekly celebrates the release of Alice in Wonderland by putting Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter on the cover of the March 5th issue, with the headline “Johnny Depp Goes Mad! From the Mad Hatter to Edward Scissorhands–Depp & Director Tim Burton on Their Greatest Creations.” Inside the issue is a nine-page feature by Josh Rottenberg that includes a lengthy interview with Johnny Depp and Tim Burton, looking back on their seven film collaborations. A special bonus for Depp and Burton fans–this issue includes three additional cover shots from past films, and you don’t have to buy four separate copies to get all the pictures. Bravo! The four cover characters are THE MAD HATTER, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, ED WOOD, and WILLY WONKA. Here’s a section of the interview:

EW: When you did Pirates of the Caribbean, the executives at Disney famously panicked at first over how you were playing Jack Sparrow. Was there any concern this time about portraying the Mad Hatter as a sort of pale-skinned, green-eyed, orange-haired freak?

JOHNNY DEPP: When we first went in to do the camera tests, I was thinking, “They’re going to lose their minds.” But Tim fully supported it. It was a couple of solid hours in the makeup chair every day, but it really helped. You start to understand who the guy is through all that weird kind of Carrot Top Kabuki.

TIM BURTON: From Edward Scissorhands on, Johnny has always wanted to cover himself up and hide. [Laughs] I get it.

JOHNNY DEPP: I still do. Absolutely.

TIM BURTON: It’s fascinating to see Johnny work up to a character, though. In the past, we’ve done some studio read-throughs of the script and the executives will come up to me afterward, like, [in a nervous whisper] “He’s not going to do that in the movie, is he? [. . .] It’s funny, because the thing that worries people most is often the thing that makes it work.

EW: And to prove it, there are now people standing out on Hollywood Boulevard dressed as Jack Sparrow.

JOHNNY DEPP: I was driving down Hollywood Boulevard one day and stopped at a light, looked to my left, and saw Willy Wonka having a conversation with Jack Sparrow. It was so cool, man.

The Zone thanks Emma for the Entertainment Weekly article and FANtasticJD for the cover scans. You can read more on the Zone’s News & Views forum.

Only a few hours before the Royal World Premiere of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland at the Odeon Leicester Square, the theater chain announced that it has reached an agreement with Disney to show the 3D film in Odeon cinemas. Earlier in the week, Odeon had declared that it would not screen Alice in the UK or Ireland to protest Disney’s plan to reduce the gap between the film’s cinema debut and DVD release to around three months rather than the usual 17 weeks. However, intense negotiations between Disney and Odeon paid off. A statement released on February 25th said, “Odeon is pleased to announce that it will now be showing Alice In Wonderland beginning March 5 in its cinemas in the UK, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Portugal and Austria.”

Competitors Cineworld and Vue had previously struck deals with Disney and had announced their intention to screen Alice in their cinemas.

British moviegoers are the big winners here, since they will be able to see Alice in Wonderland as its creators wished it to be seen–in a cinema on a 3D screen. As Johnny Depp told the BBC at the Alice premiere, “What is most important, in all of this, is the people. The film is made for the people, and it’s not about my relationship with a corporation or Tim’s relationship with a corporation or anything else like that. It’s a film made for the people, and that’s why we’re all so happy it’s been resolved.”

The Zone thanks AnaMaria for the Odeon news release and Emma for the BBC interview; you can read much more about Alice in Wonderland on the Zone’s News & Views forum.