Tim Burton's take on Alice in Wonderland was fueled by a hatred for the titular character

Tim Burton is no stranger to adaptations and reinventions. He's taken on Batman, Roald Dahl's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," and more. However, when it came to tackling the "Alice in Wonderland" story, things started out strangely considering her hatred of the titular character. As he explained to The Guardian, he never liked the way the character was portrayed in television and film. "She's a very boring, weird little girl," he shared with his signature candor. "I wanted to make him a character that I could relate to: quiet, inner, uneasy about himself, not sure how to handle things, being both young and having an old soul."

Creating a story that is not just a series of vignettes was also important to him. Back at Comic Con in 2009, during the Hall H presentation for "Alice in Wonderland," Burton shared with the audience his motivation for the film's story:

“Seeing other movie versions, I never felt an emotional connection to this one. It was always a girl wandering from one crazy character to another, and I never really felt of real emotional connection. So it's an attempt to really try to give [the film] a framework of emotional grounding that hasn't been in any version before."

With a "boring" main character and a lack of emotional connection to the source material, Burton had an uphill battle. Then he found Mia Wasikowska.