Melissa McCarthy To Play Tinker Bell In Live-Action Peter Pan; NBC Musical Releases Tiger Lily, Captain Hook Footage
With Nicolas Cage as Nana! (Let's manifest that casting, people.)
Sure, maybe we don’t need another live-action Peter Pan, but I’m not complaining. Look what our fascination with perpetual adolescence hath wrought! Party City-wearing Christopher Walken as the world’s most over-it Captain Hook! We are going to watch this Melissa McCarthy “Tinker Bell adventure project,” everyone, and we are going to like it.
According to Deadline, McCarthy is attached to play Tinker Bell in an upcoming “comedy adventure” movie with Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum) directing. Nicholas Stoller (The Muppets) will be scripting the adaptation. Again, I don’t think anyone is clamoring for more live-action Peter Pan adaptations (let’s just skip to the inevitable Hook reboot and be done with it), but I’m definitely excited by the prospect of McCarthy as Tinker Bell. Besides, the words to focus on here are “comedy adventure,” aka the antithesis of “gritty reboot.” Thankfully.
In other Pan news, NBC is continuing to release footage from the dress rehearsal for their December 4th televised musical, Peter Pan Live! And this time, they’ve given the people what we really want: Pirate Walken!
From the brief glimpse of Tiger Lily we get in that footage, it seems her original costume has been altered–just one of the many deviations from racist musical theatre tradition NBC has wisely made. In addition to casting an actual descendant of the Cherokee Nation in the role (not that anyone deserves a gold star for not whitewashing), EW reports some song titles and lyrics have also been altered. The song “Ugg-A-Wugg” has been retitled “True Blood Brothers,” and all derogatory lines and “nonsense words” therein have been omitted. Executive Producer Neil Meron told EW the altered lyrics are now canon:
Amanda has consulted with our Native American consultant [Jerod Tate], just in terms of replacing ‘Ugg-a-Wugg’ with something more traditionally Native American—which has been approved by them and the rights holders. Now and forever, this will hopefully be the version [in the show].
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