Disney’s Alice in Wonderland blunder

It seems that some Hollywood institutions are finding it difficult to come to terms with the brave new world of the internet, if Disney's troubles earlier this week are anything to go by. The studio had been preparing a trailer for Tim Burton's much-awaited take on the classic children's novel Alice in Wonderland, slated for a March 2010 release.

Inevitably, the trailer was leaked by someone at the studio and then posted on IGN, a gaming and entertainment website on Wednesday. Disney went ballistic, as Burton was supposed to unveil the sneak peek at Comic-Con in San Diego the following day.

In an effort to save their big exclusive, Disney set out on the futile task of having all traces of the video removed from the internet. The corporation forced YouTube to take down all versions of the trailer on the video-hosting site, but by now every entertainment website worth its salt had their copy of the video up.

Comic-Con duly passed, and the Alice in Wonderland trailer is now back up on YouTube but Disney's actions have been strongly criticised. On Mashable, the definitive social media news blog, Ben Parr said it had been "an utterly mindboggling mistake" and accused the studio of not understanding the new media landscape.

"Why would Disney take away a promotional video for its new movie from millions of people? People want to be excited about Alice and instead of embracing that excitement and fuelling the fire, Disney cut off the oxygen," wrote Parr. "This type of behaviour can and does affect ticket sales, reviews, and can create unnecessary backlash."

Amid the furore over the release of the promo, the content itself was overlooked. As previously reported on The First Post, Burton appears to have created a Gothic fantasy of Wonderland, with a suitably insane Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp, with a surprisingly good - for once - English accent) and relative screen newcomer Australian actress Mia Wasikowska as Alice.