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Disney's latest live-action riff on a classic is "Peter Pan & Wendy," a new adaptation of the classic "Peter Pan" story. Ever since first taking center stage in J.M. Barrie's 1904 stage play, Peter Pan and the magical land of Neverland have captured imaginations all over the world. The whimsical story with a hint of darkness has inspired plenty of movies, plays, and books over the years, each with a slightly different take on the Boy Who Never Grew Up. Here's a brief look back at all of the notable movie adaptations and how they each made the Neverland mythos their own.

"Peter Pan" (1924)

The first authorized movie adaptation of "Peter Pan" was this silent film version, starring Betty Bronson as Peter Pan, Ernest Torrence as Captain Hook, Mary Brian as Wendy Darling, and Virginia Brown Faire as Tinker Bell. J.M. Barrie personally worked on a screenplay for this one,...

Elysian Film Group has debuted a new trailer for his follow-up to Benh Zeitlin’s Oscar-nominated film ‘Beasts of The Southern Wild’, ‘Wendy.’

The film follows the classic story of Peter Pan which is wildly reimagined in this ragtag epic starring a stunning cast of young actors, headlined by Devin France in the title role of Wendy.

While lost on a mysterious island where ageing and time have come unglued, Wendy must fight to save her family, her freedom, and the joyous spirit of youth from the deadly peril of growing up.

Photo Courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures. © 2019 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation All Rights Reserved

Directed and written by Zeitlin alongside his sister Eliza Zeitlin, he wanted to capture and reinvent the childhood myth that had captivated him and his sister. Rather than Peter’s story, their tale focuses on Wendy who experiences Neverland but has to leave it behind.

The timeless story of Peter Pan is reimagined in the wildly inventive and engrossing Wendy from director Benh Zeitlin. But the real treasure of the film is young star Devin France who bedazzles and electrifies the screen as the titular character.

Lost on a mysterious island where aging and time have come unglued, the fabled Wendy must fight to save her brothers, gain her freedom, and retain the joyous spirit of youth all while constantly battling the deadly specter of adulthood in this enchanting film from Searchlight Pictures, and the director of Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012). Simply put, this is not the legend of Peter Pan you may be familiar with. This is a new vision of the character from a gifted director, told primarily from the perspective of the character of Wendy, the young girl who accompanied Peter and the Lost Boys on their adventures and skirmishes against...

Over the last few years the “Mouse House” has gone “all in” on doing live-action remakes of their Animated features film classics. Now we’re not talking about the Pixar flicks, though CGI has certainly been enlisted to give the more fantastic elements. Though it stuns me to say it, kudos to the Hollywood Foreign Press and their Golden Globe awards for pointing out that one such remake was not “live-action” but rather a computer-animated feature. These raids of the Disney “vault” target mainly their 1937 to mid-1990s output. Last year was almost a deluge with digital “re-do’s” of Dumbo, Aladdin, and The Lion King, with Lady And The Tramp streaming on the Disney+ app. Ah, but one hasn’t been “tech’d up”. Maybe because it originated in live-action, on stage because unlike most of the classic fairy tales it’s just a bit over a century old.

After breaking out big with the sensational Beasts of the Southern Wild, writer/director Behn Zeitlin has returned with the magnificent Wendy. A thoughtful deconstruction of Peter Pan, the film follows Wendy (Devin France) and her brothers as they follow Peter (Yashua Mack) to a place where they could stay young forever, but once there they learn some hard lessons about growing up. I caught the film at Sundance back in January and thought it was excellent, so I was excited to talk to Zeitlin about the project. We talked about the process of making the movie over seven years, …...

Wendy director Benh Zeitlin on Liza Minnelli’s scream (as Sally Bowles) the moment the train goes by in Bob Fosse’s Cabaret: "I’ve always loved that moment. That character is so wild, like such a great ferocious liberated woman character.” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

In the final instalment of my in-depth conversation with Benh Zeitlin at the Bowery Hotel in New York, we discussed how he developed a relationship between Shay Walker (mother Angela Darling) and Tommie Lynn Milazzo, who plays her baby Wendy, casting the twins Gavin Naquin and Gage Naquin, and working with his sister Eliza Zeitlin on their “shared vision” for Wendy, shot by Sturla Brandth Grøvlen (Josephine Decker’s Shirley) and starring Devin France as the adolescent Wendy.

Devin France, Gavin Naquin, Gage Naquin, Romyri Ross, and Yashua Mack in Benh Zeitlin’s Wendy

Herbert Brenon’s 1924 silent Peter Pan, my favourite adaptation of Jm Barrie’s play,...

Chicago – The Peter Pan mythos is as well known as any legend, ever since J.M. Barrie invented the character in 1904. Through nearly a hundred versions in virtually all media, the theme remains the same … what happens if we never grow up. Benh Zeitlin adds his spin in “Wendy,” the follow-up to his Oscar nominated “Beasts of the Southern Wild” (2012).

The Explorer: Devin France is the Title Character in ‘Wendy’

Photo credit: Searchlight Pictures

“Wendy” focuses on the title character, portrayed with wide-eyed wonder by Devin France. She is portrayed as the modern-day daughter of a single mother, flanked by her twin brothers Douglas and James (Gage and Gavin Naquin). The austere family lives by a train depot, and the three siblings are tempted by a mysterious child rail rider named Peter (Yashua Mack) to run away. They travel to a mysterious island, where the inhabitants never grow up. The...

“Wendy,” Benh Zeitlin’s riff on the iconic Peter Pan tale, was something he dreamed about making his entire life. “Me and my sister Eliza, who I wrote the film with, really dreamed about making this film our entire lives, and it evolved as we grew up,” Zeitlin told TheWrap’s Steve Pond at the Sundance Film Festival. “I think that when we looked back at all of our games we played as children, where you were in a world and when you became 13 you were out — you were kicked out of it. In our childhood world, you know, we looked at adults and we just thought, how could that happen to us? What are we gonna lose that’s going turn us into who we are now, which is wild and free and imaginative and what’s gonna turn us into people that we don’t recognize? People who are destroying the planet,...

Benh Zeitlin’s “Wendy” took the lead among indie films struggling to find footing for their limited release openings this weekend, with the grittier take on “Peter Pan” only grossing $30,000 from its four-screen New York/Los Angeles release for a $7,500 average.

It’s a far cry from Zeitlin’s Oscar-nominated “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” which had an opening average of $42,425 in the summer of 2012 and went on to gross $21 million worldwide. Starring Devin France as a girl who follows a reckless boy into a world where time is twisted, “Wendy” premiered at Sundance and received mixed reviews with a 40% Rotten Tomatoes score. It will expand to 10 more cities next weekend.

Sony Pictures Classics’ “Greed” opened this weekend to $28,496 from four screens for an average of $7,124. From the actor-director team of Steve Coogan and Michael Winterbottom, this satire of the fashion world and the ultra-rich has a 59% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

The specialty box office is headed towards the second star on the right and straight on till morning with Benh Zeitlin’s magical adventure Wendy, a fresh reimagination of J. M. Barrie’s classic tale of Peter Pan. The pic from Searclight Pictures is Zeitlin’s follow up to his Oscar-nominated Beasts of the Southern Wild which was released in 2012.

Co-written by Zeitlin and his sister Eliza, Wendy isn’t necessarily cut from the same cloth from Disney animated feature, rather it speaks to Zeitlin’s hyperealstic aesthtetic. The film, which debuted at Sundance earlier this year, stars newcomer Devin France in the titular role of Wendy, based on the heroine Wendy Darling of Peter Pan. In Zeitlin’s vision of Neverland, Wendy and her friends get whisked away by a boy named Peter where they get lost on a mysterious island where no one ages and time stands still.

Wendy director Benh Zeitlin on the Montserrat volcano: "Every time I would go back there I had to rewrite the script because things would just be growing at this rate that’s exponential. It’s so fertile and so alive.”

Benh Zeitlin’s Wendy, a free-range take on Jm Barrie’s classic story of Peter Pan, co-written with his sister Eliza Zeitlin, who is also the production designer, has Wendy Darling living with her single mother (Shay Walker) and twin brothers James and Douglas (Gavin Naquin and Gage Naquin) above the diner they run right by the railroad tracks in rural Louisiana.

Beasts Of The Southern Wild and Wendy director Benh Zeitlin (with Anne-Katrin Titze) on nature: "There are things on this Earth that are so awesome, they’re unexplainable the same way magic is.” Photo: Sam Fetner

One night, the three kids hop on the roof of a freight train,...

Who knew that “Beasts of the Southern Wild” was not just a nervy, thrilling debut film, but a design for living?

Director Benh Zeitlin suggests as much with “Wendy,” his second feature, which arrived eight years after “Beasts” took the 2012 Sundance Film Festival by storm on its way to Best Picture and Best Director Oscar nominations.

That film was the uproarious chronicle of a feral young girl, Hushpuppy, who lived in a ramshackle community (“the Bathtub”) in the swamps of the southern U.S., resisting the constraints of civilization at every turn. “Wendy,” which also premiered at Sundance, begins on the outskirts of civilization, in a small diner right by the side of the train tracks, and then finds a way to escape into a wild, exuberant and dangerous utopia.

Oh, and it’s a riff on “Peter Pan,” and on the whole idea of storytelling and the power of myth.

It has taken eight years for Benh Zeitlin to deliver the follow-up to his Oscar-nominated 2012 feature debut “Beasts of the Southern Wild.” But you could say the idea for “Wendy,” which reimagines the classic “Peter Pan” from the viewpoint of his female friend (played by first-time actor Devin France), has been percolating far longer than that.

Zeitlin wrote the film with his sister, Eliza Zeitlin, who also serves as production designer on the movie, a tale that started with puppets when the Zeitlins were growing up and has stayed with them into adulthood. “When I was brought home from the hospital, Benh had prepared a puppet show for me,” quips Eliza. “It was our very first interaction on Earth.”

As with “Beasts,” the idea for “Wendy” was to eschew VFX and stunt doubles. In the two years it took for the duo to write the story, there were many discussions...

It’s been eight years since Benh Zeitlin made his astonishing feature-directing debut with Beasts of the Southern Wild, a low-budget landmark set on the bayous of Louisiana that won Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Actress (for its extraordinary nine-year-old star Quvenzhané Wallis), Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay nods. Now, at 37, Zeitlin is back with Wendy, his folkloric spin on J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan that top-lines Wendy Darling, the Victorian girl who flew off to Neverland to mother an island’s worth of lost boys. If you...

Back in 2012, a young filmmaker by the name of Benh Zeitlin burst on to the scene with Beasts of the Southern Wild. Debuting at the Sundance Film Festival, the movie blew away audiences, going on to be a darling of the awards season, even scoring four Academy Award nominations. Zeitlin himself picked up a pair of Oscar nods (Best Director and Best Original Screenplay), firmly entrenching him as someone to watch out for. What would he do next? Well, it took until Sundance 2020 for his follow up to arrive, and now Wendy hits theaters this week. Unfortunately, while his unique aesthetic is still very much in evidence, there are diminishing returns this time around. Overly familiar, unfocused, and grindingly repetitive, this is very much a misfire from Zeitlin. The film is a retelling of Peter Pan, with the gritty and grounded, yet fantastical, approach that Beasts of the Southern Wild also employed.

“Wendy,” Benh Zeitlin’s riff on the iconic Peter Pan tale, was something he dreamed about making his entire life.

“Me and my sister Eliza, who I wrote the film with, really dreamed about making this film our entire lives, and it evolved as we grew up,” Zeitlin told TheWrap’s Steve Pond at the Sundance Film Festival. “I think that when we looked back at all of our games we played as children, where you were in a world and when you became 13 you were out — you were kicked out of it. In our childhood world, you know, we looked at adults and we just thought, how could that happen to us? What are we gonna lose that’s going turn us into who we are now, which is wild and free and imaginative and what’s gonna turn us into people that we don’t recognize? People who are destroying the planet,...

Is it worse to be bored or to be annoyed by a lack of ambition? What’s more grating: toe-curlingly twee humor or the type of writing that assumes a child using mild profanity is quirky? And why, of all times, would someone bunch all of these up and make it into a Peter Pan story in 2020? J. M. Barrie’s story has graced the screen a multitude of times as well as on other media, and it isn’t one that begs for another adaptation.

If it were to work, it would need a radically different perspective. It’d also need to toy with its characters, maybe even smudge their identities. The script would have to mix up the location and, while keeping ahold of the themes, adjust them to a different ethos. The performances would have to be solid, and while it’s an admittedly tough ask for something with so many children,...

by  Abe Fried-Tanzer

Eight years ago, director Benh Zeitlin, just twenty-nine at the time, brought his debut feature Beasts of the Southern Wild to Sundance, where it took home the Grand Jury Dramatic Prize. It went on to score four Oscar nominations, including one for Best Picture and a bid for directing for Zeitlin. Since then, he has produced a few projects, but now marks the much-anticipated release of his second effort behind the camera.

Wendy is a creative retelling of the Peter Pan story, with Wendy (Devin France) and her twin brothers (Gage and Gavin Naquin) helping their single mother at the diner where she works and watching excitedly as trains go by their windows every night...

Eight long years after “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” Benh Zeitlin brings that same rust-bottomed sense of magical realism to the legend of Peter Pan, reframing J.M. Barrie’s Victorian classic through the eyes of the eldest Darling. “Wendy,” as the indie-minded not-quite-family-film is aptly titled, re-envisions its title character as a working-class kiddo raised at a whistle-stop diner, who witnesses one of her young friends disappearing on a passing freight train and a few years later decides to follow it to the end of the line, where runaway urchins don’t age and the Lost Boys live like “The Lord of the Flies.”

Although the director’s feral energy and rough-and-tumble aesthetic make an inspired match for a movie about an off-the-grid community doing everything it can to resist outside change (that was essentially the gist of “Beasts” as well), cinema has hardly stood still since Zeitlin’s last feature.

The lyrical whimsy of 2012 breakout “Beasts of the Southern Wild” owed some measure of influence to “Peter Pan,” so it’s no surprise the classic tale of a boy who won’t grow up provides the foundation for director Benh Zeitlin’s long-awaited followup, “Wendy.” Seven years have passed since “Beasts” became a surprise cultural phenomenon, blending evocative visuals and an imaginative swampy backdrop with complex emotional themes. It seems Zeitlin has been trapped in a Neverland of his own making all along, because “Wendy” feels as if no time has passed at all.

Zeitlin’s wondrous “Pan” riff feels like such a natural continuation of the “Beasts” experience that it practically unfolds in the same immersive universe — pensive voiceover paired with overwhelming, expressionistic bursts of storybook imagery — taking this unusual epic into abstract places where fantasy gives way to the ominous challenges of the adult world.

As usual, mileage...