Hook is a 1991 American fantasy film directed by Steven Spielberg. The film stars Dustin Hoffman in the title role, Robin Williams, Julia Roberts, Bob Hoskins, and features Maggie Smith, Caroline Goodall, Charlie Korsmo, Amber Scott, and Dante Basco. Hook acts as a sequel to Peter Pan's original adventures, focusing on a grown-up Peter who has forgotten his childhood. Now known as "Peter Banning", he is a successful corporate lawyer with a wife and two children. Captain Hook kidnaps his two children, and he must return to Neverland and reclaim his youthful spirit as Peter Pan in order to challenge his old enemy.

Spielberg began developing the film in the early-1980s with Walt Disney Productions and Paramount Pictures, which would have followed the storyline seen in the 1953 animated film and 1924 silent film. Peter Pan entered pre-production in 1985, but Spielberg abandoned the project. James V. Hart developed the script with director Nick Castle and TriStar Pictures before Spielberg decided to direct in 1989. Hook was shot entirely on sound stages at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, California. Although receiving negative reviews by critics at the time of its release, it was a success with audiences, grossing over $300 million worldwide, and was nominated for multiple categories at the 64th Academy Awards. It also spawned merchandise, including video games, action figures and comic book adaptations.

Plot[link]

Peter Banning (Robin Williams) is a mild-mannered corporate attorney whose relationship with his family, especially his two young children Jack (Charlie Korsmo) and Maggie (Amber Scott), is strained by continuous absences and broken promises. His wife, Moira, (Caroline Goodall) struggles to keep them together and grows frustrated at Peter for his callous behavior. The family flies to London to visit Moira's grandmother, Wendy Darling (Maggie Smith), who helped Peter find a family when he was a young orphan.

Upon arrival, they meet Tootles (Arthur Malet), Wendy's first orphan, now an elderly gentleman who has "lost his marbles". Peter, Moira, and Wendy attend a ceremony for the expansion of Wendy's orphanage. While they are out, the children are abducted and a note is left for Peter by a James Hook. Wendy attempts to explain to Peter that he is in fact Peter Pan, who left Neverland years ago after falling in love with Moira, and that his old nemesis, Captain Hook (Dustin Hoffman), has returned and taken his children for revenge. He denies this and spends the evening drinking.

Tinker Bell (Julia Roberts) appears before Peter that night and knocks him unconscious and flies him to a pirate port in Neverland. There, he awakens in disbelief, and is discovered by Hook and his second in command Smee (Bob Hoskins), who threaten to harm the children unless he accepts Hook's challenge to a duel. However, Peter's failure to reach expectations disheartens Hook, who commands the crew to kill them all. Tinker Bell intervenes and is granted three days in which to prepare Peter for a proper duel. Peter is accidentally knocked overboard and eventually finds his way to the Lost Boys' hideout, now led by Peter's successor, Rufio (Dante Basco). The Lost Boys at first dismiss him as an old man who has no hope of regaining his former glory, but through their rigorous training and his own sparks of inspiration he begins to relearn the magic of Neverland.

Meanwhile, Hook gets an idea from Smee to persuade Peter's children to love him more than Peter, so Hook devises a ploy for Maggie and Jack called "Why Parents Hate Their Children". Maggie does not fall for the ploy, but Jack does when Hook uses Jack's frustration over his father's continuous broken promises to steal his affection. Peter is heartbroken when he sees Hook treating Jack like a son, and becomes determined to win his family back. Stumbling upon his childhood home in a tree (destroyed by Hook), he finally remembers his past, learning how to fly by recalling his "happy thought": being a father. Peter regains the leadership of the Lost Boys and they challenge Hook and his pirates in an all-out battle. Peter tries to get Jack back from Hook, but Jack refuses as he now has come to look upon Hook as a father. However, Peter soon regains Jack's love when the latter realizes what Hook is really like, after Rufio is killed by Hook in a duel. Peter then saves Maggie from Hook's pirates. Peter and Hook engage in a climactic sword fight, and Hook is apparently killed when the Crocodile, which Hook has built into a massive clock tower, falls on him. Jack and Maggie return home as Peter designates the largest member of the Lost Boys, Thud Butt (Raushan Hammond), the only other lost boy besides Rufio whom Peter grew a connection to, as the new leader of the Lost Boys, and tells them to take care of everybody smaller than them, adding "Thank you for believing," as he leaves Neverland.

Returning home, Peter finally realizes the love he has for his family and the importance of having a youthful heart. Tootles is dismayed at missing the adventure, but discovers pixie dust in his bag of lost marbles and uses it to go flying around London and back to Neverland. While flying out from the windows, he says "seize the day", a catchphrase often used in Dead Poets Society, another movie starring Robin Williams. Wendy remarks to Peter that his adventures are now over, but Peter says, "To live would be an awfully big adventure."

Cast[link]

• Dustin Hoffman as Captain Hook: A villainous pirate who has had a long enemy relationship with Peter Pan. After escaping from his death, Hook seeks revenge against Peter by kidnapping his two children.
• Robin Williams as Peter Banning / Peter Pan: Peter has forgotten his childhood in Neverland. After leaving Neverland he was adopted by an American couple, Hank and Jane Banning. He has become a successful corporate lawyer with a wife and two kids. After Captain Hook kidnaps his two children, Peter Banning must reclaim his youthful spirit as Peter Pan in order to challenge Hook.
  • Ryan Francis as young Peter Pan in flashbacks, and Max Hoffman as the younger Peter.
• Julia Roberts as Tinker Bell: A fairy who helps Peter regain memory of his childhood and "happy thoughts". She is in love with Peter but understands why he must continue his relationship with his family.
  • Lisa Wilhoit as the young Tinker Bell.
• Bob Hoskins as Smee: Hook's henchman who devises the plan to persuade Peter's children to "love" Hook. Hoskins also portrays a garbage sweeper in Kensington Gardens.
• Maggie Smith as Wendy Darling: A former neighbor of J. M. Barrie, who was credited as the author of Peter Pan. After Wendy's adventures with Peter Pan, she becomes well known for helping orphans. After Peter decided to leave Neverland to find love with Moira, the adult Wendy taught young Peter how to read and arranged for him to be adopted by the Bannings. As a young girl, she was in love with Peter Pan but young Peter realized too late his own feelings for Wendy after seeing her as a married older woman.
  • Gwyneth Paltrow appears as young Wendy Darling in flashbacks.
• Charlie Korsmo as Jack Banning: Peter and Moira's son who begins to rebel against his father and looks towards Captain Hook as a father figure when Hook uses Jack's frustration of his father's broken promises to turn him against Peter.
• Amber Scott as Maggie Banning: Peter and Moira's daughter and Jack's younger sister who, after the kidnapping, does not fall for Hook's ploy of "why parents hate their children". A Peter Pan enthusiast, after Maggie discovers her father and the hero she idolizes are one and the same, she is proud to be his daughter.
• Caroline Goodall as Moira Banning: Wendy's granddaughter, Peter's loving wife, mother to Jack and Maggie and sister to the unseen Margaret. After realizing that he missed his chance with Wendy, young Peter decides to leave Neverland for Moira to prevent his history with her grandmother from repeating itself after falling in love with her at first sight.
• Dante Basco as Rufio: Leader of the Lost Boys since Peter's departure from Neverland. Rufio is initially resentful of Peter but soon wishes he had a father like him. He is killed by Captain Hook during a duel.
• Arthur Malet as Tootles: A senile old man living with Wendy. A former Lost Boy, Tootles is also Wendy's "first orphan". Peter helps to give him the ability to fly by finding his lost marbles, which he had left in Neverland.
• Jasen Fisher and James Madio portray Lost Boys. Kelly Rowan makes a cameo appearance as Peter Pan's mother and Genesis vocalist Phil Collins appears briefly as an English police inspector. More cameos include singers David Crosby and Jimmy Buffett as members of Hook's pirate crew, Nick Tate as a pirate who fights Peter Pan while taking away Maggie, and Glenn Close similarly appears as a male pirate who is punished by Hook. Filmmaker George Lucas and actress Carrie Fisher appear as the couple accidentally sprinkled with fairy dust as Tinker Bell brings Peter to Neverland.

Production[link]

J. M. Barrie considered writing a story in which Peter Pan grew up; his 1920 notes for the latest stage revival of Peter Pan included possible titles for another play: The Man Who Couldn't Grow Up or The Old Age of Peter Pan.^[2] The genesis of Hook started when director Steven Spielberg's mother often read him Peter and Wendy as a bedtime story. Spielberg explained in 1985, "When I was eleven years old I actually directed the story during a school production. I have always felt like Peter Pan. I still feel like Peter Pan. It has been very hard for me to grow up, I'm a victim of the Peter Pan syndrome."^[3]

In the early 1980s, with Walt Disney Pictures, Spielberg began to develop the film which would have closely followed the storyline of the 1953 animated film and 1924 silent film.^[4] He also considered directing Peter Pan as a musical with Michael Jackson in the lead.^[5] The project was taken to Paramount Pictures, where James V. Hart wrote the first script with Dustin Hoffman already cast as Captain Hook.^[5] Peter Pan entered pre-production in 1985 for filming to begin at sound stages in England. Elliot Scott had been hired as production designer.^[4] With the birth of his first son, Max, in 1985, Spielberg decided to drop out. "I decided not to make Peter Pan when I had my first child," Spielberg commented. "I didn't want to go to London and have seven kids on wires in front of blue screens. I wanted to be home as a dad."^[5] Around this time, Spielberg considered directing Big, which carried similar motifs and themes with Peter Pan.^[5] In 1987, Spielberg "permanently abandoned" Peter Pan, feeling he expressed his childhood and adult themes in Empire of the Sun.^[6]

Meanwhile, Paramount and Hart moved forward on production with Nick Castle as director. Hart began to work on a new storyline when his son, Jake, showed his family a drawing. "We asked Jake what it was and he said it was a crocodile eating Captain Hook, but that the crocodile really didn't eat him, he got away," Hart reflected. "As it happens, I had been trying to crack Peter Pan for years, but I didn't just want to do a remake. So I went, 'Wow. Hook is not dead. The crocodile is. We've all been fooled'. In 1986 our family was having dinner and Jake said, 'Daddy, did Peter Pan ever grow up?' My immediate response was, 'No, of course not'. And Jake said, 'But what if he did?' I realized that Peter did grow up, just like all of us baby boomers who are now in our forties. I patterned him after several of my friends on Wall Street, where the pirates wear three-piece suits and ride in limos."^[7]

By 1989, Hart and Castle changed the title of Peter Pan to Hook, and took it from Paramount to TriStar Pictures, headed by Mike Medavoy, who was Spielberg's first talent agent. Robin Williams signed on, but Williams and Hoffman had creative differences with Castle. Medavoy saw Hook as a vehicle for Spielberg and Castle was fired, but paid a $500,000 settlement.^[7] Spielberg briefly worked together with Hart to rewrite the script^[4] before hiring Malia Scotch Marmo to rewrite Captain Hook's dialog and Carrie Fisher for Tinker Bell's dialog. The Writers Guild of America gave Hart and Marmo screenplay credit, while Hart and Castle were credited with story. Fisher went uncredited. Filming started on February 19, 1991, occupying nine sound stages at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, California.^[1] Stage 30 housed the Neverland Lost Boys playground, while Stage 10 supplied Captain Hook's ship cabin. Hidden hydraulics were installed to rock the setpiece to simulate a swaying ship, but the filmmakers found the movement distracted the dialogue, so the idea was dropped.^[8]

Stage 27 housed the full-sized pirate ship Jolly Roger and the surrounding Pirate Wharf.^[8] Industrial Light & Magic provided the visual effects sequences. Hook was financed by Amblin Entertainment and TriStar Pictures, with TriStar distributing the film. Impressed with his work on Cats, Spielberg brought John Napier as a "visual consultant". The original production budget was set at $48 million, but ended up between $60–80 million.^[1][9] This was also largely contributed by the shooting schedule, which ran 40 days over its original 76 day schedule. Spielberg explained, "It was all my fault. I began to work at a slower pace than I usually do."^[9] He also found it difficult to work with Julia Roberts, who was suffering from a mental disorder after her breakup with Dylan McDermott.^[4]

Themes[link]

Spielberg found close personal connection to the film. The troubled relationship between Peter and his son echoed Spielberg's relationship with his father. Previous films of Spielberg that explored a diminishing father-son relationship included E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Peter Banning's "quest for success" paralleled Spielberg starting out as a film director and transforming into a Hollywood business magnate. This led to Spielberg's divorce from Amy Irving, which would possibly lead to Banning's relationship with his family.^[10] "I think a lot of people today are losing their imagination because they are work-driven. They are so self-involved with work and success and arriving at the next plateau that children and family almost become incidental. I have even experienced it myself when I have been on a very tough shoot and I've not seen my kids except on weekends. They ask for my time and I can't give it to them because I'm working."^[4] Similar to Peter Banning at the beginning of Hook, Spielberg also has a fear of flying. He feels that Peter Pan's "enduring quality" in the storyline is simply to fly. "Anytime anything flies, whether it's Superman, Batman, or E.T., it's got to be a tip of the hat to Peter Pan," Spielberg reflected. "Peter Pan was the first time I saw anybody fly. Before I saw Superman, before I saw Batman, and of course before I saw any superheroes, my first memory of anybody flying is in Peter Pan."^[4]

Soundtrack[link]

The film score was composed by John Williams. The lyrics for tracks "We Don't Wanna Grow Up" and "When You're Alone" were written by Leslie Bricusse. The original 1991 issue was released by Epic Records. In 2012, a limited edition of the soundtrack, called Hook: Expanded Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, was released by La-La Land Records and Sony Music. It contains almost the complete score with alternates and unused material. It also contains liner notes that explain the film's production and score recording.

Commercial songs from film, but not on soundtrack

• Pick'em Up - Music by John Williams and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse
• Take Me Out to the Ball Game - Written by Jack Norworth & Albert Von Tilzer

Expanded Original Motion Picture Soundtrack[link]

Reception[link]

Spielberg, Williams and Hoffman did not take salaries for the film. Their deal called for the trio to split 40% of TriStar Pictures' gross revenues. They were to receive $20 million from the first $50 million in gross theatrical film rentals, with TriStar keeping the next $70 million in rentals before the three resumed receiving their percentage.^[1] Hook was released in North America on December 11, 1991, earning $13.52 million in its opening weekend. The film went on to gross $119.65 million in North America and $181.2 million in foreign countries, accumulating a worldwide total of $300.85 million. Hook was declared a financial success,^[13] and is the fifth-highest grossing "pirate-themed" film, behind all four films in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series.^[14] In North America totals, Hook was the sixth-highest grossing film in 1991,^[15] and fourth-highest worldwide.^[16]

Film critics gave Hook generally negative reviews. As of December 2011, review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 29% of critics have given the film a positive review, based on 38 reviews, certifying it "Rotten", with an average rating of 4.4/10.^[17] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote that the "failure in Hook was its inability to re-imagine the material, to find something new, fresh or urgent to do with the Peter Pan myth. Lacking that, Spielberg should simply have remade the original story, straight, for the '90s generation."^[18] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone felt Hook would "only appeal to the baby boomer generation" and highly criticized the sword-fighting choreography.^[19] Vincent Canby of The New York Times felt the story structure was not well balanced, feeling Spielberg depended too much on art direction.^[20] Hal Hinson of The Washington Post was one of few who gave the film a positive review. Hinson elaborated on crucial themes of children, adulthood and loss of innocence. However, he observed that Spielberg "was stuck too much in a theme park world".^[21] Despite this, as of May 2012, the film holds a rating of 6.3/10 on IMDb.

Hook was nominated for five categories at the 64th Academy Awards. This included Art Direction (Norman Garwood, Garrett Lewis) (lost to Bugsy), Costume Design (lost to Bugsy), Visual Effects (lost to Terminator 2: Judgment Day), Makeup (lost to Terminator 2: Judgment Day) and Original Song ("When You're Alone", lost to Beauty and the Beast).^[22] Hook lost the Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Film to Aladdin, in which Robin Williams co-starred,^[23] while cinematographer Dean Cundey was nominated for his work by the American Society of Cinematographers.^[24] Dustin Hoffman was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor (Musical or Comedy).^[25] John Williams was given a Grammy Award nomination;^[26] Julia Roberts received a Golden Raspberry Award nomination for Worst Supporting Actress.^[27]

Children's literature portal

Video game[link]

Hook is the name of four distinct video games released in 1992, all based on the Steven Spielberg film of the same name.

[edit] Hook by Irem

In this arcade beat 'em up produced by a Japanese video game company, Irem, the objective was to save Peter Pan's children from the evil Captain Hook. The player could choose to play as Pan or as one of the four Lost Boys. Five playable characters but up to four players at the same time can play this game.

[edit] Hook by Sony Imagesoft/Ukiyotei

The player controlled Peter Banning through various side-scrolling levels on, yet again, a quest to save his children from Captain Hook. This game received mostly positive reviews, making it stand out from the typical movie-game adaptation.

The original Super Nintendo Entertainment System version was designed and developed by a Japanese video game developer, Ukiyotei. The Sega Mega Drive/Genesis and Sega Mega/Sega CD ports were handled by Core Design. The Sega Game Gear port was handled by Spidersoft (this was also supposed to be released for the Sega Master System; a prototype exists). All versions were published by Sony Imagesoft and were essentially identical; however, the Sega CD version had the musical score from the film and better cut scenes with voice actors and digital stills.

[edit] Hook by Sony Imagesoft/Ocean

Ocean developed this side-scrolling platformer, different from the Sony/Ukiyotei game, for the Nintendo Entertainment System and Nintendo Game Boy. Sony Imagesoft published both versions.

[edit] Hook by Ocean/Shadow Software

This was the only adventure video game published by Ocean, following roughly the plot of the movie.

Designed and developed internally at Ocean Software for the Amiga and Atari ST, converted to PC by Shadow Software. The game was a point and click adventure. The initial pirate setting of Neverland brings to mind the Monkey Island series. The main objective was to escape the Pirate City, reach the Lost Boys' hideout and try to become Peter Pan in order to fight once more with Captain Hook.

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Terry Brooks (17 December 1991) (Hardcover). Hook. novelization of the film. Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-449-90707-4. 
• Charles L.P. Silet (2002). The Films of Steven Spielberg. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 0-8108-4182-7. 

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Hook

• Hook at the Internet Movie Database
• Hook at AllRovi
• Hook at Rotten Tomatoes
• Hook at Box Office Mojo
• Sony Imagesoft's Hook at MobyGames
• Ocean's Hook at MobyGames

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