Directed by: Robin Budd, Ian Harrowell, Kevin Lima (consulting director)
Written by: Temple Mathews
Music by: Jonathan Brook

Production Started in: 2000
Released on: February 15, 2002
Running Time: 72 minutes

Budget:19.5 million
U.S. Opening Weekend: $15.623 million over 2,605 screens
Box-Office: $48.42 million in the U.S., $102.8 million worldwide
 
 

CAST
 

Peter Pan... Blayne Weaver
Jane / Young Wendy... Harriet Owen
Wendy... Kath Soucie (Bimbette in Beauty and the Beast, Kanga in The Tigger Movie)
Captain Hook... Corey Burton (Thugs in Tarzan, and Mole in Atlantis)
Smee / Pirates (Starkey & Wibbles)... Jeff Bennett (Okino in Kiki's Delivery Service)
Danny... Andrew McDonough
Timmy... Lawrence Watson (The Simpsons, Stuart Little 2)
Tuker... Jim Cummings
 
 
 
 
 

INTERESTING FACTS

  Set in London during World War II, it follows the adventures of Wendy's 12 year-old daughter Jane, who doesn't believe her mother's stories about Peter Pan and Neverland until she is kidnapped by Captain Hook.  Peter Pan then rescues her and takes Jane to live with the Lost Boys. But because of her rebel spirit, Jane doesn't like the idea very much and sees the world there as a place with too many problems.

  The 1991 live-action film, Hook, had a similar concept (an older Peter instead of Wendy's daughter), but there's no connection between the two stories. Interestingly enough, the movie's first trailer was clearly inspired by the Spielberg movie's.

  The story of Return to Never Land goes back to author J.M. Barrie's original Peter Pan, written for the stage in 1904 and novelized in 1911. At the end of the book, Peter Pan is said to visit Wendy's room again and again over the years, meeting her daughter, Jane, and then later a granddaughter, and great-granddaughter. Return to Never Land extrapolates on that idea, adding a subplot about the hardened life Jane lives during the war compared to the frivolous, romantic lifestyle Wendy once enjoyed.

  The working title for this feature was Peter and Jane.

  Disney animation president Thomas Schumacher revealed in a February 2001 press conference that the President's Day 2002 release date was part of a new strategy: "We decided to own President's Day as only Disney can."

  Disney TV usually doesn't know as it starts development and even begins production on a movie whether it will wind up in theaters or as a video premiere. After originally being penciled in as a theatrical project, Return to Never Land was switched to the video schedule before being slotted back in the theatrical lineup.

  A first trailer was released online on June 2001.

"Jane was modeled after [children in] contemporary audiences,"said Sharon Morrill, executive in charge of production for the movie. "A lot of kids today don't have that kind of [old-fashioned] imagination they grow up so fast" adds producer Chris Chase. "I realize how hard it is as an adult to hold on to that sense of fresh wonder."

  The film crew took full advantage of the Disney Animation Research Library, studying the original film's resource materials, including Frank Thomas' sketches of Captain Hook and Milt Kahl's renderings of Peter Pan.

  Blayne Weaver, who provides the voice of Peter Pan, believes he was destined for the role. As a youth, Weaver launched his acting career by winning the role of Michael with The Peter Pan Players in a theatre production of the play!

  Voice actress Harriet Kate Owen (Jane and Young Wendy), who recorded her parts in a London recording studio, never interacted with any of the cast or crew members face to face. The producers, directors, and other cast members connected with her through her headphones.

  Creating the pixie dust turned out to be quite a challenge for animators. Computer-generated pixie dust had sparkle and volume but a distinctly hard edge. Two-dimensional "dust" had a more organic and random appearance but the process was time consuming. Ultimately the crew found new ways to implement the look of crude brush strokes into their 3-D creations, giving the feel of hand-painted backgrounds within the CG images.

  The alterna-pop group They Might Be Giants wrote the music and lyrics to the song "So To Be One Of Us/Now That You're One Of Us," an anthem performed by Peter, Jane, and the Lost Boys.

Musician John B. Sebastian saw a Peter Pan production starring Boris Karloff as Captain Hook when he was five years old: "I dreamed of flying when I saw the play." Years later John wrote his first hit 'Do You Believe in Magic'. Peter Pan was his inspiration, which the Disney studio did not know when they asked him if they could use the song as the end title track for Return to Neverland. John not only agreed; he also offered to re- write the words so it can be more about flying instead of music.

  Actor Corey Burton always wanted to be the voice of Captain Hook. He began his career at age 17 doing Hook sound-alike recordings when the original voice actor, Hans Conreid, was unavailable. 29 years later, Corey's career has come full-circle: he voices the dapper buccaneer in this Peter Pan sequel.

  Most of the sequels are produced on a shoestring budget by Disney's TV animation department; they're shipped direct-to-video and marketed mainly for small children. The lucrative follow-ups often cost less than $15 million to produce and earn upward of $100 million in video sales and rentals. By comparison, Disney's theatrical animation features delicately detailed animation, soaring budgets upward of $80 million and massive marketing campaigns aimed at children and adults.

  Voice actor Corey Burton talked in a February 2002 interview about bringing back to the screen one of history’s greatest bad-guys, Captain Hook: "It's always a great deal of fun to perform such a flamboyantly villainous character. I think many who love the original film really wanted to revisit Neverland. Now we're in London during the War, where we're surprised to find that Hook has survived the Crocodile, and mistaking Wendy's daughter Jane for the young Wendy -kidnaps the girl to use as bait in order to GET Peter Pan once and for all! To ensure consistency with [Hans Conried's original] performance as Cap'n Hook, I did 'tune up' before going on mic each time, but his voice is a perennial favorite of mine, and I can usually conjure it up without any trouble." And to end, what are the chances of Captain Hook and Peter Pan returning for a third time? "Not that I know of", explains Corey.
 
 

PRODUCTION DETAILS

This project has been in development since the mid-90s.  In 1999, production finally began, and preliminary work was done by animators in Toronto and Vancouver.

But in September 1999, a couple of months before the release of Toy Story 2, an undisclosed number of animators were laid and production was stopped: unhappy with the first results, Disney had thrown the project back into development for a complete rethink.

"The layoffs of layout artists and background painters happened because of one particular project going back into development," Disney spokeswoman Laurel Whitcomb told Daily Variety. "This is a typical occurrence in animation. It's not massive layoffs. Our studio in Canada continues to work on other projects."  Whitcomb then declared that Disney has not decided whether the Peter Pan sequel would be released theatrically or as a video -not to mention it might have never been released at all.

But in the light of the commercial success of Toy Story 2 and The Tigger Movie, the project was revived in 2000 as a potential video premiere, and put back into the production schedule at the Walt Disney Studios-Australia.

In early 2001,  studio execs were so pleased with the way the feature, then 95% complete, was turning out that they decided to release the movie theatrically in 2002!

Peter Pan: Return to Never Land isn't the first film for the company to make the jump from video to theatrical release. Previously, both Toy Story 2 and The Tigger Movie were also direct-to-vid projects that went on to extremely successful theater releases.  Other direct-to-video projects on the way include an animated sequel to the Disney's 1961 classic 100 Dalmatians for release in 2002 and Hunchback of Notre Dame II, scheduled to hit stores in the fall 2001. Other animated vid projects in the works include sequels to Tarzan, Mulan, The Jungle Book as well as a third Lion King.