For quite a while Disney has been developing a remake of the classic Pete’s Dragon, with David Lowery (Ain’t Them Bodies Saints). A few weeks ago they found their Pete in the form of young Oakes Fegley. Now they’re trying to get someone else to sign on the dotted line – Robert Redford.
The original 1977 movie featured a mixture of live-action and animation. It was about a young boy and his (animated) pet dragon who run away to a new town to escape Pete’s abusive adoptive parents.
This time around the dragon with be CGI, and the story will also be rather different. This time around Pete was raised in a forest by the dragon after his parents died in a car accident. He has to take on a group of loggers who are cutting down all of the trees. Oona Laurence is also onbaord as a mill owner’s daughter.
Redford would play a local who tells tall tales involving dragons that no one believes. It seems he would be the equivalent of Lampie from the original, memorably played by Mickey Rooney.