Peter Pan is getting yet another reboot on the big screen, this time thanks to ANNA KARENINA and ATONEMENT director Joe Wright. Wright is in negotiations to helm PAN which will be an origin tale of the famed J.M. Barrie creation. This comes shortly after ABC’s fantasy series ONCE UPON A TIME switched the third season focus to Neverland and features an evil version of Peter and an anti-hero version of Captain Hook.
PAN will be produced by Greg Berlanti and comes from a screenplay by Jason Fuchs. Fuchs has written primarily comedies like MAFIA! and THE HEBREW HAMMER and most recently ICE AGE: CONTINENTAL DRIFT. The synopsis for PAN doesn’t offer much unique to the classic tale:
An orphan is taken to the magical world of Neverland, where he becomes the savior of the natives and leads a rebellion against the evil pirates.
Peter Pan is a character that is very hard to mess up but has also been heavily stereotyped by the Walt Disney cartoon. In recent years we have had Steven Spielberg‘s underappreciated HOOK and P.J. Hogan‘s underrated PETER PAN starring Jason Isaacs as Captain Hook. Wright is definitely a talented director and his unique version of ANNA KARENINA brought a nice change to the dry Russian novel. Maybe he can do something different with PAN, but that remains to be seen.