Despite the failure of the most recent attempt to bring Peter Pan to the screen with Warner Bros. and Joe Wright's Pan, Disney is pushing ahead with another animated-classic-to-live-action transfer project, hiring Ain't Them Bodies Saints director David Lowery and writing partner Toby Halbrooks to tackle a new take on Neverland's most famous resident.
The pair has already been busy on another Mouse House toon-to-live project, as they're in post-production on Pete's Dragon, which stars Bryce Dallas Howard, Robert Redford and Karl Urban, and this new job would seem to indicate that their Disney bosses are happy with what they're seeing so far on that one.
Pan's people have been problematic for many a filmmaker: Pan was just the latest version to underperform. Even Steven Spielberg couldn't quite crack it with Hook. Perhaps Lowery and the development bods at Disney will have more luck, though people still have a strong fondness for the 1953 animated version.
The company has been ploughing full speed ahead with its live-action versions of tales it previously animated, and there is another Pan-adjacent project bubbling away in the shape of Tinkerbell, which Reese Witherspoon is developing. That one is likely to shoot before Lowery starts work on his Pan, and Deadline speculates that Witherspoon's film could tie into Lowery's. Pete's Dragon, meanwhile, lumbers on to UK screens on August 12.