In the glittering labyrinth of Hollywood, where dreams tumble down rabbit holes and reputations hang by the thread of a Mad Hatter’s riddle, few announcements have ignited such a maelstrom as Sabrina Carpenter’s plunge into Lewis Carroll’s timeless whimsy. On November 11, 2025, Universal Pictures lit the fuse with a bombshell: the 26-year-old pop sensation, fresh off six Grammy nods for her chart-topping album Man’s Best Friend and a sold-out Short n’ Sweet tour that packed arenas from Tokyo to Toronto, will star in and produce an untitled musical inspired by Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Directed by Lorene Scafaria—the sharp-witted force behind Hustlers—this isn’t a mere adaptation; it’s Carpenter’s audacious bid to reclaim a childhood obsession, reimagining the Victorian classic as a vibrant, song-infused fever dream. But as concept art leaks and casting rumors swirl, social media has devolved into a chaotic tea party of fervor and fury. Fans hail it as a “vibranium-level glow-up” for the former Disney darling, while detractors decry it as a “corporate cash-grab on a corpse”—a scandalous resurrection of a story that’s been butchered by everyone from Tim Burton to AI filters. Is this the empowering evolution of a Gen-Z icon, or the final nail in Wonderland’s overexposed coffin? The internet, ever the unhinged Cheshire Cat, can’t decide—and the debates are only just beginning.

Carpenter’s entanglement with Alice isn’t some overnight whim; it’s a passion project that’s been brewing since her tween years, when she traded braces for blue hair dye at a 16th-birthday bash themed around the tale. “I’m a huge fan of Alice in Wonderland,” she gushed to Interview magazine in 2021, clutching an original Carroll illustration gifted by a fan. “Over the years, my supporters have brought me Alice-themed things—it’s like the universe’s way of saying, ‘Go make it yours.'” That cosmic nudge materialized in 2020, when her At Last Productions banner sold a pitch to Netflix: a contemporary musical set at a psychedelic festival dubbed “Wonderland,” with Carpenter starring as a modern-day Alice navigating beats, betrayals, and bad trips. Penned by Ross Evans, it promised trap anthems amid hallucinatory haze, a far cry from Carroll’s 1865 nonsense verse about a girl who shrinks, grows, and philosophizes with hookah-smoking caterpillars. But as Carpenter’s star supernova’d—Emails I Can’t Send dropping in 2022, followed by the inescapable earworm “Espresso” and a steamy Feather video that ruffled conservative feathers—the project stalled. Netflix, citing scheduling clashes amid her skyrocketing tour dates, quietly shelved it. Whispers from insiders painted a picture of creative drift: Evans’ script deemed “too niche,” Carpenter’s ballooning commitments pulling her toward arenas over soundstages. By 2023, it was a ghost in her IMDb—a “what if” that haunted fan forums like a persistent White Rabbit.

Enter Universal, the studio that turned Wicked into a billion-dollar behemoth and knows a sure bet when it sees one. Carpenter, now a two-time Grammy winner with a fragrance line (On My Hand, On My Heart) and a Muppet Show cameo under her belt, approached them in late 2024 armed with a “detailed lookbook”—mood boards bursting with iridescent CGI forests, drag-queen Dormice, and choreography fusing TikTok trends with Royal Ballet grace. Scafaria, drawn by the pitch’s bold femininity (echoing her Hustlers stripper solidarity), signed on to write and direct, transforming it into a full-throated musical. Producers Marc Platt (La La Land), Leslie Morgenstein, and Elysa Koplovitz Dutton of Alloy Entertainment round out the tea party, eyeing a 2028 release to capitalize on Carpenter’s post-Grammy momentum. Plot details? Locked tighter than the Queen of Hearts’ croquet mallet. Sources tease a “grown-up Alice” in her mid-20s, tumbling not down a hole but into a digital rabbit warren—perhaps a VR festival gone awry, where influencers wield flamingos as scepters and algorithms dictate doom. Carpenter’s Alice won’t be the wide-eyed ingenue of Disney’s 1951 animation; expect a sharp-tongued anti-heroine, belting bangers about identity crises and imposter syndrome, her pint-sized frame (she’s 5’0″) belying a voice that could shatter looking glasses. “This is Sabrina owning her narrative,” a production insider confides. “From Disney puppet to Wonderland queen—it’s meta as hell.”

The announcement hit like a potion vial shattering on studio marble, but the real explosion detonated on social media, where #SabrinaAlice trended for 48 hours straight, amassing 3.2 million impressions and spawning 150,000 posts. X (formerly Twitter) became a battlefield of blue-check bon mots and stan-account screeds. On the prowl for positivity? Carpenter’s die-hards flooded timelines with fan art: her as Alice in a corseted mini-dress of swirling tattoos, crooning “Off with Their Heads” to a horde of zombified influencers. “Sabrina as Alice is the duality of pop perfection—sweet like please please please, chaotic like manchild,” one viral thread gushed, racking up 45K likes. Reddit’s r/popheads erupted in a 2K-upvote megathread: “She’s got the whimsy of Ariana in Wicked but the edge of a Burton babe. This could be her Into the Woods moment.” TikTok, ever the echo chamber, birthed a montage epidemic—clips of her Short n’ Sweet twerk synced to Carroll quotes, captioned “When Alice discovers espresso instead of potions.” Even allies like Olivia Rodrigo (her rumored ex-BFF) amplified the hype, reposting a leaked concept sketch with heart-eyes emojis. For these devotees, it’s vindication: Carpenter, the girl who outgrew Girl Meets World and flipped off church backlash with “Jesus was a carpenter,” is finally helming her own fable. “She’s not just starring—she’s producing. That’s the scandal: a woman in her prime calling the shots,” one feminist film blog proclaimed, igniting 12K shares.

But oh, the backlash—a Red Queen’s roar that drowned out the applause. Conservative corners of X lit up with fire-and-brimstone rants, decrying the “sexualization of a children’s classic.” One megachurch pastor, with 500K followers, thundered: “Carpenter’s Feather was filth; now she’s corrupting Carroll? Alice was innocent— this’ll be drag queens and debauchery!” Echoing her 2023 music video uproar (filmed in a church, sparking “blasphemy” boycotts), detractors unearthed old clips of her festival-fueled antics, Photoshopping her into Carroll’s illustrations with devil horns. “From Disney to degeneracy,” a viral meme snarled, juxtaposing her Tall Girl innocence against Espresso‘s sultry strut. Ageism reared its hookah: at 26, is Carpenter “too old” for Alice? Threads on Mumsnet and Facebook’s “Classic Lit Purists” group spiraled into 10K-comment wars, with one user snarling, “Mia’s ethereal in Burton’s; Sabrina’s a TikTok tart. Why ruin a fairy tale for likes?” Even within fandoms, fissures cracked: Swifties (post-Eras Tour opener beef) sniped, “Taylor did folklore whimsy better—Sabrina’s just chasing relevance.” And the Netflix faithful? Saltier than the Mock Turtle. “They dumped our girl for scheduling, now Universal swoops in? Corporate cannibalism,” a subreddit screed lamented, petitioning for a “boycott the reboot” with 8K signatures.

Deeper still, the debates unearth Hollywood’s underbelly—a scandal not of smut, but of systemic sabotage. Why did Netflix greenlight then ghost a 20-year-old’s vision, only for Universal to resurrect it post-stardom? Insiders whisper of “development hell”: the pandemic stalled pre-pro, but Carpenter’s pivot to music (Island Records deal in 2022) made her “uninsurable” for shoots. “She was the next Zendaya—too hot for one project,” a former exec spills. Now, with Sinners (her vampire thriller with Michael B. Jordan) eyeing Oscar buzz, Universal sees dollar signs: a $150M budget, IMAX musical numbers, and tie-ins to her fragrance empire. Scafaria’s involvement? A masterstroke—her Hustlers grossed $157M on a $20M bet, proving she can spin female fury into gold. Yet critics like The Guardian‘s film desk warn of “Wonderland fatigue”: post-Burton ($1B+ haul but sequel flop), why another? “It’s public domain pandering—Disney owns the merch monopoly; this is Universal’s revenge porn on IP.” Social media amplified the irony: memes of Carpenter as the Dormouse, snoring through “canceled Netflix dreams,” hit 2M views.

Amid the melee, Carpenter’s silence speaks volumes. No Instagram carousel, no TikTok teaser—just a cryptic Story: a pocket watch ticking backward, captioned “Late for a very important date.” Her team, dodging Variety’s hounds, hints at principal photography in summer 2027, eyeing Atlanta’s soundstages for the rabbit hole (with Puerto Rico’s cenotes doubling as underwater tea parties). Casting calls? A wishlist of whimsy: Barry Keoghan as a punk Mad Hatter, Ayo Edebiri voicing the Cheshire Cat, and Bowen Yang as a non-binary Tweedledee. Göransson (her Black Panther collaborator) is rumored for the score—think Afrobeat riddles laced with synth-pop potions. For Carpenter, it’s personal alchemy: from The Hate U Give‘s activist fire to Emergency‘s Sundance grit, her roles have always punched up. Alice? Her manifesto. “It’s about curiosity in chaos,” she hinted in a pre-announce Rolling Stone profile. “Falling down holes, growing too big or too small— that’s adulthood, baby.”

As the dust settles on this digital dust-up, one truth emerges: Carpenter’s Wonderland isn’t scandal—it’s symptom. In an industry where women helm just 12% of blockbusters, her dual role is a declaration. Social media’s storm? A sideshow to the real revolution: a pop princess penning her own portal, inviting us all to tumble after. Will it be a billion-dollar balm or a looking-glass flop? The debates rage on—X’s algorithm feasts on the fury—but come 2028, when the curtain lifts on her Alice, the verdict won’t be pixels. It’ll be posterity. Down the rabbit hole we go, darling. And this time, Sabrina’s holding the map.