Rhys Ifans, Bob Hoskins and Anna Friel are starring in a new TV prequel to Peter Pan, called Neverland. It's due to be a two ninety-minute part series, starting in Victorian London but going all the way past the second star to the right and straight on till morning.
Production's due to start next week in Genoa and Dublin. Ifans plays James Hook, pre-hand eating incident (we're guessing); Friel is pirate Elizabeth Bonny and Hoskins reprises his role as Smee from Spielberg's Hook. Charlie Rowe, of The Boat That Rocked, **Robin Hood **(where he played the younger version of Crowe's Robin) and soon Never Let Me Go fame, will play Peter himself.
Here's how Syfy puts the synopsis: "Raised on the streets of turn-of-the century London, orphaned Peter (Rowe) and his pals survive by their fearless wits as cunning young pickpockets. Now, they've been rounded up by their mentor Jimmy Hook (Ifans) to snatch a priceless--some believe, magical--treasure which transports them to another world. Neverland is a realm of white jungles and legendary mysteries of eternal youth, where unknown friends and enemies snatched from time welcome the new travelers with both excitement and trepidation.
"These groups include a band of 18th century pirates led by the power-mad Elizabeth Bonny (Friel), and the Native American Kaw tribe led by a Holy Man (Raoul Trujillo), which has protected the secret of the tree spirits from Bonny and her gang for ages, and that has meant war. But as the fight to save this strange and beautiful world becomes vital, Hook, Peter, and the ragamuffin lost boys consider that growing old somewhere in time could be less important than growing up, right here in their new home called Neverland."
Nick Willing, who did interesting things with the Oz sequel Tin Man, wrote and will direct this one. Look out for this sometime in 2011, apparently on Sky Movies Premiere HD in the UK.