A few weeks ago it was reported that after passing on The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, director Gary Ross was mulling taking on Disney’s Peter and the Starcatchers. Now Deadline reports that he’s locked in the movie as his next directorial effort.
The film is a prequel to J.M. Barrie’s classic Peter Pan, following Peter, who meets a young girl named Molly on a Neverland ship. Molly tells Peter about a trunk of magical ‘starstuff’ that must never be retrieved by ‘Black Stache’, the name Captain Hook went by before losing his hand. Peter and Molly set off on an adventure to keep this mystical substance out of the nefarious pirate’s hands.
The project was first set up at Disney way back in 2005, when Jay Wolpert was hired to adapt the book by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. After years of languishing in development, in May Jesse Wigutow was hired to write the screenplay. The tale has already become a Broadway play, which took home five Tony Awards earlier this year.
Ross was also considering directing The Secret Life Of Houdini for Summit, but no deal was ever signed and he’s now decided not to make the film, so he can concentrate on the Peter Pan film.