Sarah Michelle Gellar signs for Alice movie

More than four years after the game's release, Universal Pictures has announced plans to produce a movie adaptation of Alice, the cult PC platformer from American McGee.

According to Hollywood news site Variety, Buffy the Vampire Slayer star Sarah Michelle Gellar has already signed up to take the title role. Marcus Nispel, whose other credits include the 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake and the forthcoming Pathfinder, will direct.

The movie will follow the plot of the game, which adds a twisted spin to Lewis Carroll's classic tales. Some years after her adventures in Wonderland, Alice's parents are killed in a house fire and, devastated by the loss, she is placed in a mental asylum.

Alice once again finds herself exploring Wonderland, but this time it's a much darker, more violent place, ruled over by the evil Queen of Hearts. And so, it's up to Alice to restore peace to Wonderland and find her way back to sanity in the process.

There's been talk of an Alice movie adaptation for some time, and Wes Craven was at one point slated to direct. So upset were Alice fans when he pulled out of the project that they even started a petition campaigning for the film to go ahead.

As yet there's no word on a release date, but shooting is unlikely to start until Gellar finishes work on The Girls' Guide To Hunting and Fishing, which will go into production this autumn.

Alice is the latest in a series of games to be adapted for the big screen, with film versions of Halo, Prince of Persia and Silent Hill also in the works.