At the Once Upon a Time in Wonderland panel at New York Comic-Con, Ed Kitsis and Adam Horowitz revealed why they chose to mash up Alice with a genie and what we can expect from this season.
1. Realizing ‘Wonderland’ could be its own show
Kitsis and Horowitz realized that they could do a whole show based on Alice in Wonderland during season one of OUAT when they first explored Hatter.
“For us we love the idea of this little girl who followed a rabbit down a hole so she was naturally curious. We wanted to tell an epic love story with this really trippy world and that is when we came up with Cyrus, the genie. We thought Alice, who is naturally curious, and who likes to have adventures would naturally fall in love with someone who has spent life times granting wishes an seeing how people work.”
2. Casting
“I think we got really lucky across the board with out cast. They make the parts their own and make them better than we can write them. The minute we saw Michael we knew he was the Knave of Hearts even though we didn’t really know what he was saying because of his accent.”
3. Back Story
You will find out that Jafar wants the bottle for a nefarious purpose and a powerful spell. The Red Queen is very different. She has a deep emotional reason for what she is doing and it will unfold in flashbacks over the next few episodes. Alice will also have a back story including her time in Victorian England. Horowitz added it isn’t the last time we will see the girl in the blue dress.
We will definitely see how Alice meets the Knave. In addition, Robin Hood will make appearances in both shows. He has an interesting backstory with the Knave of Hearts and that will be in episode three.
4. The Queen of Hearts to return
There are definite plans for Barbara Hersey to return to Wonderland. The Wonderland we see now is a direct result of actions Cora took. The Red Queen also had to learn magic from somewhere.
5. The White Rabbit
For scenes with The White Rabbit the actors are working opposite a cardboard cut out. For the scene where the rabbit was running through the field they had the cut out on a motorized skate board.
The Rabbit clearly has affection for Alice yet he is working with the Red Queen. They intend to answer the question as to why Rabbit is working with the Red Queen.
6. The End
The story will absolutely have closure by the end of the season. At the end of this run everything set up in the pilot will be resolved and should fans want more they are happy to take theses characters on another adventure.