Because God knows there aren’t enough live-action PETER PAN movies out there.
In case you still have a hankering for seeing The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up, Neverland, The Lost Boys, and Hook once more after HOOK, P.J. Hogan’s PETER PAN, the PETER PAN LIVE! special with Walken and Alison Williams, and the bombtastic PAN from last year, Disney has put their own PETER PAN remake into play, and have set their PETE’S DRAGON director David Lowery to helm it.
I guess he likes old Disney movies that start with “PETE”?
Lowery’s DRAGON writer Toby Halbrooks will co-write the script with him, which will obviously skew more closely to the 1953 animated classic than the films I mentioned, most crucially with the original songs like “You can Fly!” and “Second Star To The Right.”
Now, everyone knows that Disney’s been hitting the well like they’re Ty Cobb, remaking everything from CINDERELLA to BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and obviously this weekend’s JUNGLE BOOK (with remakes of DUMBO, 101 DALMATIONS, PINOCCHIO, and even MULAN on the backburner), but I don’t think we’ve spent as much recent time in the world of any of them as we have in Neverland. I mean, look at the projects I mentioned above: that’s four major PAN projects in just the last 25 years, more than we’ve had SPIDER-MAN origin stories (not counting the animated stuff, like RETURN TO NEVERLAND and the TINKER BELL movies). Also, it should be mentioned, the last two (Hogan and Joe Wright’s PANs) were massive bombs, even though the former was actually fairly well-reviewed. It’s not like people are chomping at the bit for more PAN adventures in Neverland, with or without the original songs (which aren’t among Disney’s most iconic anyway).
Plus, is there any chance they’re going to go big and risky after Wright’s ballsy choices fell so flat with audiences? More likely, they’ll put on a relatively boring, staid PAN production, no? No one wants to be embarrassed now, yeah?
The overexposure of this young, flying lad aside, Disney’s had good luck with these remakes so far, and should continue to do so when JUNGLE BOOK drops this weekend, so maybe we should try and keep somewhat of an open mind. Disney obviously loves what they’re seeing of Lowery’s PETE’S DRAGON remake, and we’ll just have to wait and see that movie to get a gauge of what he could bring to the oft-depicted world of Neverland, The Lost Boys, mermaids, and of course, Captain Hook.
