Live-Action Peter Pan/Alice In Wonderland Crossover Prequel In The Works

Hollywood still can't get enough of fairy tale movies, even if there would seem ample cause to suspect the general public don't share that appetite: take the under-performance of last year's Pan and this year's The Huntsman: Winter's War. But it would seem those in high places still have faith in the format, as there's another one in the works, this time with the ambitious conceit of crossing over two of the best-loved children's stories of them all.

Brenda Chapman, director of Pixar's Brave, is set to make her live-action debut with Come Away, which will present a new origin story for both JM Barrie's Peter Pan and Lewis Carroll's Alice - who, in this version of events, are siblings.

Here's how Deadline sum it up: "Before Alice went to Wonderland, and before Peter became Pan, they were brother and sister. When their eldest brother dies in a tragic accident, they each seek to save their parents from their downward spirals of despair until finally they are forced to choose between home and imagination, setting the stage for their iconic journeys into Wonderland and Neverland."

Don't know about anyone else, but strikes me as a pretty misguided venture on many levels. For one thing, the whole "tragic accident/downward spirals of despair" thing makes this sound too dark for younger children, who would surely be the main target audience; but more so, the critical and commercial failure of Pan surely emphasises just how bored we all are of these revisionist reworkings of classic stories.

Perhaps the attachment of the director of Brave gives some cause for optimism; but then, we all thought that when the director of Finding Nemo made John Carter, or when the director of The Incredibles made Tomorrowland...