In case you missed the memo, fairy tales are the new vampires (or something like that). “Red Riding Hood” opens this weekend and coming up are a trio of Snow White movies, another based on Hansel and Gretel, Channing Tatum‘s Peter Pan thingy, and now another movie spinning off the J.M. Barrie tale.
Deadline reports that Keira Knightley has joined the cast that already features Rhys Ifans, Anna Friel, Bob Hoskins, Charles Dance, Raoul Trujillo and Charlie Rowe in the mini-series “Neverland,” written and directed by Nick Willing, that “centers on Peter (Rowe) who, along with his pals of young pickpockets, have been rounded up by their mentor Jimmy Hook (Ifans) to snatch a magical orb that transports them to another world – Neverland. Filled with white jungles and imposing cities formed out of trees created by Dr. Fludd (Dance) and inhabited by a colony of tree spirits led by Tinker Bell (Knightley), this mysterious realm welcomes unknown friends and enemies snatched from time. These include power-mad Elizabeth Bonny (Friel) and her band of 18th century pirates who search for the answer to eternal youth, a secret guarded by a Holy Man (Trujillo). As the fight to save this strange and beautiful world escalates, Peter and his crew consider that growing old somewhere in time could be less important than growing up — right here in their new home called Neverland.”
Knightley will only provide the voice of Tinkerbell, who will be animated, and she will record the voice work for the film this spring. In case you’re curious about this (we think it sounds like a poor rip off of ‘On Stranger Tides‘ set in another world), the four-hour series will air on SyFy in December.