Sabrina Carpenter is returning to the big screen - in the most magical story ever told

Sabrina Carpenter isn’t wasting any time. Earlier this week, it was announced that she earned six Grammy nominations for her seventh studio album Man’s Best Friend — including Album of the Year, Video of the Year, and Song of the Year — and now comes news of her next film project. Her musical talent and flair for the theatrical have long made fans imagine her in various movie musicals, from a potential Mamma Mia 3 to a live-action version of Tangled that Disney is reportedly developing. For now, though, the only official information is that Sabrina is heading to Wonderland.

The pop singer will star in and produce a musical film inspired by Lewis Carroll’s 1865 book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. While Disney is behind several adaptations of Alice’s story — including the 1951 animated classic and two live-action versions from the 2010s — this new project comes from Universal Pictures.

Her longtime fascination with Alice

If you’ve been following Sabrina Carpenter for a while, this probably won’t surprise you. Last year, many interpreted her coordinated Met Gala look with then-boyfriend Barry Keoghan as an homage to Alice and the Mad Hatter.

But her fascination with the story goes even further back. In 2015, Sabrina celebrated her 16th birthday Alice in Wonderland-style, and in 2020 it was announced that she would star in and produce a musical reinterpretation for Netflix titled Alice, set at a music festival called Wonderland. At the time, she described the film as “something no one has ever seen before.” The project never came to life — until now.

Photo: Getty ImagesIt’s still unclear whether the new film will keep the festival setting of the previous version or take an entirely different direction, given that it has changed production companies. In any case, Sabrina Carpenter is finally stepping into the project of her dreams.

Her fans know well that this isn’t her first acting endeavor — she has appeared in films and series such as The Hate U Give, Girl Meets World, and Emergency. As she mentioned in an interview last year, music had “unfairly pulled her away” from acting for a while, but she never wanted to leave that world entirely. She often read scripts, though many felt like movies she had already made. By all accounts, this one will be different.

Photo: Instagram @sabrinacarpenter

Who’s behind the film?

Sabrina will also serve as a producer, alongside Marc Platt and his company, Marc Platt Productions, which operates under Universal. Leslie Morgenstein and Elysa Koplovitz Dutton are also on board as producers through Alloy Entertainment, while Lorene Scafaria will write and direct the film. That last part is especially promising — the acclaimed filmmaker directed HBO’s recent series I Love L.A. and some fan-favorite episodes of Succession. She also wrote and directed the original thriller Hustlers, which grossed over 100 million dollars at the U.S. box office in 2019.