Atonement and Hanna director Joe Wright has put his own artistic spin on J.M. Barrie’s iconic fantasy character, Peter Pan, with the upcoming Pan. The movie stars relative newcomer Levi Miller as Peter, along with Hugh Jackman as the pirate Blackbeard, Garrett Hedlund (TRON Legacy) as a young James Hook, and Rooney Mara (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)) as a re-imagined version of Tiger Lily.
Pan, as has been clearly established in the film’s trailer marketing, is not just an origin story for Peter Pan, but also a fresh interpretation of Neverland and its various inhabitants. The tale begins with Peter living in an orphanage, when he (and others) are captured and enslaved by Blackbeard and his pirate horde – leading Peter to discover that he might well be destined to defeat Jackman’s aging buccaneer and free Neverland from his tyrannical hold. For more on that, watch the Pan latest trailer, embedded above.
Rounding out the Pan cast are such folk as Amanda Seyfried (Ted 2) as Peter’s mother, Mary; Cara Delevingne (Paper Towns), as one of the mermaids of Neverland; Adeel Akhtar (Four Lions) as Hook’s future second in command, Mr. Smee; and Nonso Anozie (Cinderella (2015)) playing Blackbeard’s lead henchman, Bishop.
The trailers for Pan have suggested that the script by Jason Fuchs – who’s also penning director Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman solo movie for Warner Bros. – relies on a handful of popular fantasy genre tropes to re-imagine the Peter Pan mythos, including using a ‘chosen one’ storyline for its protagonist’s backstory and a revisionist history for a villain like Hook. Similarly, certain elements of the mythology have been re-interpreted for modern times (see: Tiger Lily appears to be the head of a multiracial tribe rather than a Native American one). How well the changes go over, though, remains to be seen.
On that note, check out the latest Pan poster, below:
Wright’s Pan origin movie (unsurprisingly) does look quite beautiful, visually-speaking, with the film’s various special effects creations (flying pirate ships, enormous crocodiles, and so forth) having clearly benefited from the additional time allotted for post-production thanks to its most recent release date delay, going by the latest trailer’s footage. Production design has always been a strong suit of Wright’s filmography and Pan should be no exception, thanks to the efforts of Aline Bonetto (who was Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s collaborator on such films as Amélie and A Very Long Engagement).
That being said, it’s difficult to gauge just how interested the general public is in seeing yet another Peter Pan re-telling – even one with a fresh take on Barrie’s creation. Nonetheless, the film’s dazzling imagery and playful tone could be enough to draw in a family crowd alone, when Pan arrives on the scene this October (as counter-programming to adult dramas like Steve Jobs and Bridge of Spies).
Pan opens in U.S. theaters on October 9th, 2015.
