Johnny Depp's ready to give your kids (and you, most likely) nightmares for life as The Mad Hatter in Tim Burton's 'Alice In Wonderland'

Credit: Walt Disney Company

Guess it's time to start pimping the movies we'll be seeing in 2010, and supposedly, a series of teaser posters will be arriving in theaters this week to announce that "Alice In Wonderland" will be arriving in March of next year, courtesy of the twisted mind of Tim Burton.

And if you've seen the preview that USA TODAY published tonight, then you have some idea of just how twisted things are going to get.  You take the production art, the images of the cast, the story description, and the notion of seeing all of this in 3D, and that's a pretty irresistible package.

The image you see attached to this story is Johnny Depp as The Mad Hatter, and it appears that Ain't It Cool actually ran the first image of Depp as the Hatter all the way back in November of 2008, which you can see right here.  Nice catch, guys.

The rest of what USA TODAY ran is brand-new, though, including some very cool interactive production art pieces of the White Rabbit, the human-faced flower garden, and Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee, who look terrifying and deranged.  I'm intrigued by whatever distortion's been done to Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen.  Her giant head freaks me out... and I like it.

[more after the jump]

I'm also interested in the idea that this is a sequel to the story we already know, and not just a retelling.  In this film, Alice is running away from a marriage proposal when she follows a familiar rabbit down a hole, taking her back to a Wonderland that remembers her, even if she's forgotten it.  Add in the fact that Mia Wasikowska is a stone-cold genius (watch the first season of "In Treatment" and disagree with me... I dare you), and she's Burton's Alice, and it sounds to me like this could be something dazzling and different, a new way into a familiar classic.

March, you say?  Can't.  Wait.

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