With a lineage that includes a 1993 Macaulay Culkin-starring version and last year’s 3-D, Nathan Lane-and-John Turturro-and-a-whole-lot-of-wigs iteration, clearly there’s no reason not to mount another adaptation of The Nutcracker, unless you actually saw those films and/or looked at their box-office grosses. But New Line’s in-development take on Tchaikovsky’s ballet has two things that those recent predecessors do not—namely, a take that is more akin to Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland, as that movie made a lot of money, and director Adam Shankman, as both Hairspray and the upcoming Rock Of Ages have demonstrated to New Line that he can deliver plenty of crowd-pleasing excess without a lot of boring nuance getting in the way. This Nutcracker also has the same production team behind The Twilight Saga, who will help turn the story of a young girl and her toy wooden soldier friend, mouse kings, and dancing candies into an overblown, saturated-colorful spectacle with dark, gritty undertones, just in time for Christmas 2013.
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