Undeterred by Pan and likely spurred on by the lucrative public domain dollars wrought by Alice in Wonderland, a prequel to Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland is in the works with Brave co-director Brenda Chapman making her live-action debut on the feature Come Away.

According to Variety, “Marissa Kate Goodhill has written the script, based on the premise that the Alice and Peter characters were a brother and sister who had to deal with their older brother perishing in an accident and their parents’ despair over the tragedy — leading them ultimately to journey to Wonderland for Alice and Neverland for Peter.”


I suppose it’s a sensible pairing to put Alice and Peter together, and they do have similar fantastical journeys that could lend themselves to some dazzling production design. But that should be the less of Pan and Alice in Wonderland: you need more than pretty visuals; you have to have a good story and coasting on the name recognition of the characters isn’t enough.

However, I do have faith in Chapman. While Brave was kind of taken away from her and given to co-director Mark Andrews, she was also directed The Prince of Egypt, which still holds up. Chapman has skill taking old stories and making them feel fresh and immediate, and I’m eager to see what she can do with this take on two classic tales.