Director Joe Wright’s big budget re-imagining of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan has been slowly but surely gathering its cast together. While the titular role in Pan still needs to be filled, the other parts have pretty much all been filled. We have Hugh Jackman as Blackbeard, Garrett Hedlund in the part of James Hook, and now Rooney Mara is in talks to play Tiger Lily.
In the original Barrie tale, Tiger Lily is a Native American Princess whom Peter rescues from the clutches of Captain Hook. But this is a re-imagining, with Hook at least beginning the film as basically a decent guy (the villainous role is filled by Blackbeard). So Tiger Lily need not be captured or, if Mara is cast, need she be Native American. In fact, we’re not quite certain how this character will figure into Wright’s Pan.
Right now all we really know about Pan is that it promises to tell an “untold story” about a boy in London spirited away to Neverland “where he finds great adventures where he finds great adventures that shape him into the hero known to generations as Peter Pan.” That sort of a synopsis gives us very little to go on, and there’s probably little hope that we’ll hear anything more until production gets properly underway. Given that this film has plans to feature Blackbeard, I think it safe to assume that this is not quite J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan.
With Mara currently wrapping production on Carol, alongside Cate Blanchett, she should be free by the time Pan goes into production mode this summer. Warner Brothers has set the release date for July 17, 2015, so it’s time to get a move on this multi-faceted 3D film.
