Movies based on J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan have been pretty hit or miss. Everybody appreciates the animated Disney classic, but there are probably just as many detractors as admirers of Steven Spielberg's Hook. While I have a special fondness for P.J. Hogan's Peter Pan film that sadly nobody bothered to see, it stands that the best live-action film on the subject may have been Finding Neverland, which is about the author not the story. Next year Joe Wright hopes to cast the Peter Pan story in a different light with Pan, an origin story that will star Hugh Jackman as the dread pirate Blackbeard, rather than Captain Hook.
That's not to say Hook won't appear, because he will played by Garrett Hedlund, but in these first images it's Blackbeard in the spotlight. We also get a look at Levi Miller as Peter Pan, armed with his sword and ready for swashbuckling action. In this film, penned by Jason Fuchs, Peter is an orphan kidnapped by Blackbeard's men (Hook is part of the crew) and whisked away to Neverland where he learns from the natives that he's destined to be a hero.
While Jackman looks a little silly here, there's also enough to suggest that Wright, who has done some truly gorgeous work on Atonement, Hanna, and especially Anna Karenina, is on top of his game from a visual standpoint. Also starring Rooney Mara, Adeel Akhtar, Amanda Seyfried, and Cara Delevingne, Pan opens July 17th.
