Second star to the right and straight on…to a crime scene? Yes that’s what one of two revisionist takes on the J.M. Barrie’s characters (both tenatively titled Pan) might give us. Sean Bean (Goldeneye) and Aaron Eckhart (The Dark Knight) have both been cast in 1 of 2 planned and very different takes on the Peter Pan legend.
The first gives us a deeper look at “the boy who never grew up” and we’ll essentially get an origin story. Why is that interesting? Well that’s because in this story, the characters have been rewritten to reveal that Hook and Pan are in fact brothers! Not sure Barrie would like that but it sounds like a neat direction to take the characters so we don’t get yet another retread of something we’ve seen before. Now before you get totally on board, Channing Tatum is in the lead for reasons I don’t yet know. But since this post is more about Bean/Eckhart, we’ll move on.
The other Pan, a dark and pretty interesting idea, will make Peter a villain and Hook the hero. It’s a detective murder mystery where Peter Pan is literally “the boy who never grew up”. Translation: he’s a killer with a youthful appearance who kidnaps children. Dark huh? In this story, Eckhart will play Hook, a former detective who hunts down the diabolical titular killer. Bean will play Smee (sorry Hoskins fans, I too thought he was the only one for the role), a police officer and friend of Hook. Hmm, a gritty buddy cop movie. OK I’m game…
This darker film looks to shake up (and at the same time ignore) Barrie canon and in that case the serial killer approach could be fantastic. I just hope they follow through with the idea as planned. Remember how awesome it sounded when Russell Crowe was going to play Robin and the Sheriff in the developmental stages of Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood? That would have been cool to see. Not that the final product was bad, it just wasn’t nearly as interesting.
I hope these Pan films doesn’t sour any one’s memories of the beloved stories we’ve grow up with. But from just the premise alone, they both sound like they’re just different enough from the source material to stand on their own (especially the serial killer one). Don’t know how I feel about Tatum as Peter Pan but we’ll see right?
Does this sound interesting to anyone? Do you like the sound of one story over the other? You upset they’re messing with Pan at all? Anyone a fan of Spielberg’s Hook?
4 Comments
rtm
Ooh bummer, I thought both are starring in the same movie. Man, Hollywood seems obsessed w/ fairy-tale stories lately, what w/ snow white, now multiple versions of Peter Pan.
Btw, about the Robin Hood thing, yeah it’s too bad the studio didn’t buy the idea of Russell playing both Robin AND the Sheriff.
Custard
How many times do we have to have the Peter Pan story made into a film…Meh!!
Shocking
MarcC
@Ruth…They are! That’s the reason I posted it. I’d very interested to see them in the roles of Hook and Smee.
But I’m still bumbed at how RObin Hood tunred out…oh, what might have been:P
@Custard…Well I like that these films (well one at least) is really just “inspired by Peter Pan”, and not simply another film with Peter wearing tights.
ruth
Oh all right then, awesome!