(Description taken from Wikipedia):
Peter Pan is a 2003 American-British-Australian fantasy adventure film released by Universal Pictures, Columbia Pictures, and Revolution Studios. It was the first authorized and faithful adaptation of J.M Barrie's play Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up in half a century, after Disney's version in 1953. P. J. Hogan directed a screenplay co-written with Michael Goldenberg which is based on the play and novel by J.M Barrie . Jason Isaccs plays the dual roles of Captain Hook and George Darling, Olivia Williams plays Mrs. Darling, while Jeremy Sumpter plays Peter Pan, Rachel Hurd-Wood plays Wendy Darling, and Ludivine Sagnier plays Tinkerl Bell. Lynn Redgrave plays a supporting role as Aunt Millicent, a new character created for the film.
Contrary to the traditional stage casting, the film featured a young boy in the title role. Since the first stage production of the story, the title role has usually been played by a woman, a tradition followed in the first film adaptation. Two subsequent animated adaptations have featured a male voice actor as Peter Pan, and a Soviet live-action film adaptation for television cast a boy to play the role. This film was the first live-action theatrical release with a boy playing the part. The casting of a single actor to play both George Darling and Captain Hook follows a tradition also begun in the first staging of the play.
Peter Pan received positive reviews from critics, but was a box office bomb, grossing $48.5 million in the United States and $122 million worldwide from a $130 million budget.
(My review):
This is the first Peter Pan movie I ever saw (even before the Disney version). My parents tape-recorded it off TV when I was young, because they knew that I really liked the book Peter Pan. I watched this movie quite a bit when I was a kid, and I really enjoyed it. Although I saw the Disney version later in life, it never had the same impact for me that this version did. The Disney version is all fun and games with little care for the depth of the story, while this version is a dark, more serious adaptation that truly does the story right, in such a wonderful way that I think I might even like the movie better than the book.
Recently, I got the movie on DVD, and it still holds up after all these years. The special effects are spectacular, the actors have their characters down to a T, and I still get shivers from hearing the score composed for the film.
Sadly, hardly anybody I know has even heard about this movie. I'll mention it in conversation, but more often than not, the response will be "Are you talking about 'Hook?'" Or, more recently, due to another recently released movie, "Are you talking about 'Pan?'" It disappoints me that so many people people don't know about this movie, because I think it's a wonderful film with an equally wonderful soundtrack. It's a legitimately heart-to-heart film that might even draw a few tears at times (Peter calling all around the world for people to believe in fairies in order to revive Tinker Bell is spectacular, and still gives me shivers, and the dance between Peter and Wendy at Pixie Hollow is beautiful). One of my all-time favorite movies.
Anyone else have opinions on this film?
