PETER PAN

For the first time, a boy–Jeremy Sumpter –stars in the title role of Columbia Pictures’ new fantasy-adventure Peter Pan. The fairies will twinkle and Neverland will fill you with wonder, but don’t drop your guard. The battle between Peter Pan and Captain Hook has never been fought by enemies so evenly matched.

The story begins on a chilly night in buttoned-up Edwardian London as Wendy Darling (Rachel Hurd-Wood) mesmerizes her younger brothers with tales of swordplay, swashbuckling and Captain Hook, the legendary pirate who fears nothing but a ticking clock. But a clock is ticking for Wendy, too. Her father has decreed that it’s time for her to grow up. After tonight, no more stories. She’s to be groomed for womanhood and marriage by strict Aunt Millicent (Lynn Redgrave).

Unknown to the Darlings, Peter Pan loves Wendy’s stories, too, and travels a great distance to hear them. His appearance in their nursery that night, along with a jealous little fairy called Tinker Bell (Ludivine Sagnier), triggers an awfully big adventure for Wendy and her brothers. Following him out the window like a small flock of birds, the children swoop over London’s moonlit rooftops, through a galaxy of radiant planets and stars, to the magical Neverland, where they begin an exhilarating new life free of grown-up rules with Peter and the Lost Boys.

Confronting depraved pirates, malicious mermaids, a monstrous crocodile and, worst of all, the vicious steel claw dangling from Hook’s right arm, Wendy and her brothers find out what they’re made of. And the ongoing battle between Peter and Hook escalates to a thrilling climax, played out against the fantastical backdrop of the enchanted world of Neverland.

Director-screenwriter P. J. Hogan co-wrote Peter Pan with Michael Goldenberg and was intent on remaining true to the spirit of J.M. Barrie’s original work. The story of Peter and Wendy’s trip through the night skies is rooted in the collective consciousness like a recurring dream –intoxicating, fantastical, irresistible. Much more than romantic nostalgia or a simple bedtime story, Peter Pan represents our most primal hopes and fears. Its powerful emotional truth springs from a fantasy of flight and adventure that is both universal and timeless.

Technologically, the time has never been better to tell this story on screen. Philosophically, the world’s need to dream, imagine and believe, as Peter Pan urges us to do, is greater than ever.

A beguiling duality ripples through Peter Pan. Are we meant to imagine that the Darling children actually stepped off their window ledge and flew to Neverland one night when their father had been especially stern? Or should we instead assume that Wendy bid her childhood a poignant farewell with a fantastic dream on her last night in the nursery? Either scenario offers audiences an awfully big adventure.

With P. J. Hogan at the helm, a calibrated balance between the magic of storytelling and the magic of special effects was always the mandate. Set in a world that appears "normal," his visually lavish film has the romantic tone of a turn-of-the-century painting with fresh, authentic performances and a lively respect for the original material–as well as children who fly, a crocodile the size of a double-decker bus and a fencing duel set in the sails of a pirate ship high above the ground. The contrast between the story’s two worlds–prim Edwardian London and larger-than-life Neverland–is sharply drawn. The city’s gray, cold formality melts from the children’s memories as soon as they breathe in Neverland’s surreal jungles.

P. J. Hogan’s openness to magic and imagination, along with his ability to draw others into that special world, were balanced with a scholar’s mastery of the J. M. Barrie classic.

"The book is amazing–dense and full of great characters and marvelous moments. You get the feeling that Barrie put everything that ever occurred to him in it," Hogan observes. "What drew me to making the film was realizing it had not been done. Yes, it’s literally been filmed, but the full story hadn’t been done. There were wonderful things that had not been put on-screen before."

Hogan’s knowledge was also a valuable arbiter on-set, guiding his actors during the inevitable moments when something that works on the script doesn’t hold up in performance. "Whenever there was a bit we couldn’t quite get through, P. J. would always go back to the source material," says Jason Isaacs, who had also immersed himself in writings by and about Barrie to prepare for the twin roles of Mr. Darling and Captain Hook. "What P. J. has done is what Barrie would do today."

"Peter Pan is not just about kids having an adventure and playing with fairies," says producer Lucy Fisher. "The original story, while completely accessible to children, also has depth and mystery, which is why it has sustained for so long. The myths that sustain themselves are the ones in which people face fear and come through it. "

And for Fisher, the story has always been Wendy’s as much as Peter’s. "The play is called Peter Pan," she notes, "but the book is called Peter and Wendy because it’s really two stories. Peter is certainly the star but the point of view was always Wendy’s– jumping out the window and coming back in."

The filmmakers all agree that what happens in between Wendy "jumping out the window and coming back in" had to feel believable for Peter Pan to make its mark. "One of the great ambitions from the very beginning was to give the audience the pleasure of letting it seem true, letting us all really go to Neverland, letting us inhabit a real version of the place," says producer Douglas Wick. "We knew that with today’s technology we could create that kind of strange reality that’s never been possible before."

Peter Pan opens on April 10 in theaters across the Philippines. The film is released by Columbia Pictures.