AB's Peter Pan screenplay - Part 1

PDF
Document

Description

I originally wrote this screenplay in 1983 at the behest of Francis Ford Coppola, who had read my book "Barrie & the Lost Boys", and wanted to combine the two - the Barrie/Davies story and Peter Pan - into one movie. Unfortunately Coppola's Zoetrope went belly up shortly thereafter, so I took the idea to Paramount. Jeff Katzenberg and Michael Eisner, who were then running Paramount, seemed up for the idea - providing I did a turn for them first: adapt the Biblical King David saga. Groan!

To cut a very long story short, I fell for the bait, and it was well over a year before I could take a stab at P Pan, which for some reason I've now forgotten I had to write in under six weeks. When I handed it in, Katzenberg called me up with good news and bad news. "We love the script... but Spielberg wants to make his own version."

"Hook" being the upshot.

In 1989, David Puttnam had the run of Columbia Pictures for a year and a day, during which time he suggested paying Paramount off and resurrecting my P Pan screenplay. For whatever reason. Columbia's parent company Cola Cola fired DP a few months later, and once again my PP bit the dust... by which time I'd moved on to other things.

For what it's worth, here's my script in its final form, though doubtless I'd rewrite the whole thing if given half a chance - and a chubby cheque to boot.

(For some reason this website won't allow uploads greater than 16MB, hence the inmtermissioin between two halves ...)