Baby Name Trend Starter: The book popularized the name "Wendy" so much after its release that J.M. Barrie is often erroneously credited with inventing the name. At the time, it was nothing more than an obscure nickname for "Gwendolyn".
Beam Me Up, Scotty!: "Second to the right", not, as in the Disney version, "Second star to the right". As a result of Disney's adaptation, most adaptations have Neverland be literally a star, when it was not in the original novel.
Michael would have been named Alexander “Alex” Darling, maybe because ‘Michael’ was Barrie’s name idea for Peter’s younger brother, perhaps?
Originally it was confirmed that Tiger Lily was indeed in love with Peter, even going as far as to threaten to scalp him if he didn't marry her while he was trying to go and rescue the Darlings.
It is revealed that Captain Hook survived being eaten by the crocodile because he clawed it in the eye with his hook, and is still out to get revenge.
Originally when the Darlings and the Lost Boys return to London, Peter returns and stays with them; eventually deciding to live in the Kensington Gardens with Wendy, implying that he secretly/unknowingly did decide to grow up as Wendy encourages Peter to always be a boy at heart when Peter realizes that he's almost grown into a man.
Tinker Bell was originally named Tippytoe and had speaking lines before Barrie decided to have her lines represented by bells.
The Lost Boy Slightly, who in the version we all know and love, marries into the aristocracy and becomes a lord, was originally going to end up a homeless street beggar.
In the original play, Peter and the Lost Boys could fly on their own. When children started to injure themselves by jumping off their beds, Barrie added the rule that characters needed fairy dust in order to fly.
In a draft earlier than the Anon, Peter was a villain, who stole children away from their parents. Captain Hook didn't appear at all, he was added to the play for a scene that Barrie expanded because children liked pirates.
Write Who You Know: J.M. Barrie may have based the character of Peter Pan on his older brother, David, who died in an ice-skating accident the day before his 14th birthday. His mother and brother thought of him as forever a boy.
Acting for Two: As in the tradition for Captain Hook and Mr. Darling to be played by the same actor on stage, they are both voiced by Hans Conreid. They're also drawn to look a little similar.
Although the movie fared better at the box office than Alice in Wonderland, Walt Disney didn't care for it either, claiming that the titular character was unsympathetic and unlikeable. However, unlike Alice, Peter Pan did well enough in its initial run for Walt to allow it a theatrical reissue during his lifetime, which came in 1958. However, that was the only reissue of the film when Walt was alive; its next reissue would not come until 1969, eleven years after its first reissue and three years after Walt's passing.
Milt Kahl grew to dislike his work on the movie. The majority of his scenes were with Peter and Wendy; he said that Wendy was very difficult to animate and he would've rather animated Captain Hook instead because that character was more fun.
Frank Thomas was dissatisfied with the way Captain Hook was animated, thinking he was neither menacing nor foppish. This was because the writers and the directors had different ideas of how to handle him.
Disney animator Marc Davis said in an interview decades later that he felt this way toward the Indians, saying that he and the animators would have portrayed them differently if the film were made today.
Creator's Pest: Unusually for a title character, Peter Pan was this for Walt Disney himself, as noted in Creator Backlash above.
Cross-Dressing Voices: Averted. In both movies, Peter is voiced by males: Bobby Driscoll in the first movie and Blayne Weaver in Return to Neverland. In fact, the Disney version was the first one to have a male play Peter's part rather than a female.
"Never Smile at a Crocodile" (though the melody still is heard when Tick-Tock enters the scene, and it appeared in a Sing-Along Songs volume), "Neverland" and a few songs for the pirates.
"The Second Star to the Right" originated from a deleted song from Disney's version of Alice in Wonderland, "Beyond the Laughing Sky".
Another song that was cut involved the pirates trying to persuade the Lost Boys to join their crew. It was eventually replaced with a different song, "The Elegant Captain Hook".
Dawson Casting: In the Swedish re-dub 1992, Peter Pan was voiced by Anders Öjebo, who was 26 at that point.
In 1998, Walt Disney Home Video celebrated Peter Pan's 45th Anniversary by selling it on VHS and LaserDisc for the first time in eight years, this time with a THX-certified transfer, and the documentary You Can Fly: The Making of Peter Pan. Unlike most of the LaserDisc documentaries for movies that joined Disney's most elite home video lines of the 21st century, this one accompanied all of its editions under those lines.
The 2013 Diamond Edition Blu-ray Discs and high definition digital copies came out exactly 60 years after the theatrical premiere. note This would have made the Blu-ray release the "Diamond Anniversary Edition", if Disney actually wrote such on the cover.
The Other Darrin: This happened to the dubbing's "cleanup" from the 2007 re-issue, specially since the original actors have either retired, died or grown older in the decades since the film's original release, re-recording lines containing offensive language that was not appropriate for children.
Héctor Emmanuel Gómez replaces Nicky Tavares (who would pass away in 2023) as Peter Pan, having become the character's official voice for Disney since Return To Neverland.
Arturo Casanova takes over as Captain Hook, replacing the late Dagoberto de Cervantes. Casanova had previously voiced him in House of Mouse and Mickey's House of Villains.
In addition, unidentified actors replaced Miguel Angel Herros as John, Arturo David Ortigosa as Michael, Ciro Calderon as the Indian Chief, Herminio Kenny and two other unidentified actors as some of the Lost Boys.
The Other Marty: For the Latin Spanish dub, Isidro Olace was initially cast as Peter Pan as the directors were undecisive on choosing him or Nicky Tavares for the part that they asked the actors to decide for themselves, which resulted in the former decision. However, despite having recorded almost more than a half of Peter's lines, Olace became dysphonic and he dropped out of the project. Because of this, Nicky Tavares took over for him.
Reality Subtext: Peter Pan was the first play Walt Disney ever saw, having seen a production of it in Marceline, Missouri when he was four years old.
Saved from Development Hell: This was intended to be Disney's second theatrical film, but Walt Disney didn't get the rights to it until 1939 when J.M. Barrie bequeathed the ones to his play to him. Then, he began developing the story and character designs and intended it to be his fourth film. However, the onset of World War II put the brakes on this — along with several other films — and it became Disney's fourteenth entry in 1953. This also resulted in the movie appearing as an Early-Bird Cameo along with Alice in Wonderland as a storybook on the shelf at the very beginning of Pinocchio, as well as a brief appearance of a Captain Hook sculpture in The Reluctant Dragon.
The original version of the film was much, MUCH darker.
There was a storyboarded sequence that showed Peter and the children having one last adventure aboard the flying pirate ship and bidding each other farewell.
In early drafts, Nana was going to accompany the Darlings to Neverland, and was also supposed to be the film's narrator.
The Lost Boys were going to be named in the early drafts, and the names were actually switched around when compared to Return To Neverland. Nibs was the skunk boy, Tootles was the rabbit boy, Curly (not Cubby) was the fox boy, and Slightly was the cub boy. Only the twins remained the same (for obvious reason).
Walt Disney himself originally wanted the movie to be about Peter kidnapping Wendy for her to be a mother for the Lost Boys.
Disney considered having only Wendy and Michael go to Neverland, with John staying behind. This would have been to emphasise John as trying to be very much like his father. There are some traces of this — with John being more pompous than the other two — but this trait was dropped.
The production staff envisioned a second comic relief character in Captain Hook's crew, a head chef simply known in concept art and storyboards as the "Chinese Chef" or "Chinaman;" as the name suggests, the character was a highly stereotypical portrayal of a Chinese man. The chef would ultimately be removed for unknown reasons before any of his scenes could be animated; his only official appearance in a Disney film would be in 1941's The Reluctant Dragon, which features his model sheet hanging on the wall in a background shot.
There was going to be a live-action Tinker Bell film, re-telling the events of the film through Tink's eyes, similar to Maleficent, and Tink was to be portrayed by Elizabeth Banks. She was then replaced by Reese Witherspoon, who also came on board to produce. The announcement of a live-action remake of Peter Pan, along with the decreasing popularity of the character, as evident from the cancellation of the Disney Fairies films due to low merchandise sales, ultimately put an end to this film.
A really impressive example. Tinkerbell was originally going to be entirely CGI. However Ludivine Sagnier lobbied for the role and impressed PJ Hogan enough to cast her.
Jeremy Sumpter was asked to do an English accent in a callback but, being a self-described cocky thirteen-year-old, said he didn't feel like it. He was deemed the best Peter Pan in spite of his different accent, probably also as a nod to Bobby Driscoll's portrayal of the character.
Acclaimed Flop: Despite being a certified Box Office Bomb (see below), it received generally favorable reviews from critics and audiences alike, and it's widely considered to be one of the best Peter Pan adaptations out there. Unshaved Mouse called it superior to the Disney version.
Creator Killer: The movie's financial failure was one of the motivations for the NBCUniversal merger, as Universal's parent company Vivendi sold 80% of its stake of the studio to General Electric, the then-owner of NBC, shortly after the movie bombed. It couldn't have helped that prior to Peter Pan's release, Vivendi was already saddled with debt thanks to over-expanding its media sector.
Divorced Installment: Early in production, the film was envisioned as a prequel to Hook. Dustin Hoffman had no interest in reprising his role as Hook though, so the idea was abandoned.
Dueling Works: Finding Neverland - a biopic of JM Barrie - was set for a 2003 release. But the producers of this film had the rights to the Peter Pan story and wouldn't allow any scenes from the play to feature in the film unless they pushed it back for another year.
Fake Brit: Most of the actors playing Hook's crew (who mostly have British accents) are either Australian or New Zealanders.
In Memoriam: The film is dedicated in memory of Dodi Fayed, the son of executive producer Mohamed Al-Fayed. The younger Al-Fayed was the executive producer of Hook.
One-Book Author: This film is the sole acting credit of Freddie Popplewell, who played Michael Darling.
Reality Subtext: Jeremy Sumpter joked that his mother had him put up for the role of Peter because everyone in their neighbourhood nicknamed his group of friends 'The Lost Boys', as he was their leader.
Romance on the Set: Years later, Jeremy Sumpter admitted that there was a mutual crush between him and Rachel Hurd-Wood, apparently their First Love, resulting in a natural chemistry between Peter and Wendy. Even although they never hooked up and are married to different partners nowadays, Sumpter has gone to say, "I will always have that young love that I have for Rachel." Ironically, the last time they were seen hanging out together was in a video from Disney influencer Sarah Sterling (then known as SarahSnitch when that video came out), seen here.
Scully Box: Inverted. As Jeremy Sumpter went through a growth spurt during filming, the window nursery had to rebuilt four times.
Star-Derailing Role: Sort of. Jason Isaacs said that he was getting constant word from producers and execs that the film would catapult him to the A-list. Obviously nothing of the sort happened when it bombed at the Box Office, and he admits it probably set his career back. He was stuck in generic villain roles in 2000s films for a while, but thanks to his recurring role in the Harry Potter films, he carved out a good career as a character actor.
Troubled Production: The final budget was kept secret because it bloated so much during filming, mostly thanks to the art department. Both the child actors Jeremy Sumpter and Rachel Hurd-Wood had to be hospitalised for injury and exhaustion. Jason Isaacs fell out of his harness at one point and was left dangling upside down in the air by his ankles.
The original ending would have had the narrator being revealed to be Wendy as a grown woman (whereas it's only implied in the theatrical cut) telling the story to her daughter Jane. Peter would then have visited them and Wendy would have allowed Jane to go off to Neverland with him. It can be seen as a deleted BGM-less scene as one of the bonus content on the DVD release.
simply known in concept art and storyboards as the "Chinese Chef" or "Chinaman;" as the name suggests, the character was a highly stereotypical portrayal of a Chinese man. The chef would ultimately be removed for unknown reasons before any of his scenes could be animated; his only official appearance in a Disney film would be in 1941's The Reluctant Dragon, which features his model sheet hanging on the wall in a background shot.