Jon Favreau’s lush re-imagining of The Jungle Book isn’t the only Disney classic looming on the horizon. Soon after Neel Sethi dances along to the Bare Necessities, the House of Mouse will bring back a 70s favorite in Pete’s Dragon, and you can catch a glimpse of the remake coming to life with today’s motion poster.
Written and directed by David Lowery (Ain’t Them Bodies Saints), the filmmaker is taking a leaf out of Favreau’s book by adopting a live-action approach for Pete’s Dragon. In doing so, Oakes Fegley is front and center as Pete, a lonesome 10-year-old who resides in the woods alongside his scaly pet reptile, Elliot. As the forest ranger, Grace (Bryce Dallas Howard) initially rubbishes stories of Pete and his winged companion as little more than tall tales, until the pair cross paths.
Marking another installment in Disney’s series of live-action fairytales – kicked off in large part by Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella – fans of the studio can also look forward to Bill Condon’s Beauty and the Beast and a potential Dumbo movie in the not-so-distant future.
Also starring Wes Bentley, Karl Urban, and Oona Laurence, Pete’s Dragon will take flight on August 12. Keep your peepers peeled during ABC’s Wonderful World of Disney: Disneyland 60 at 8pm ET on Sunday, February 21 for the first trailer.
For years, old wood carver Mr. Meacham (Robert Redford) has delighted local children with his tales of the fierce dragon that resides deep in the woods of the Pacific Northwest. To his daughter, Grace (Bryce Dallas Howard), who works as a forest ranger, these stories are little more than tall tales…until she meets Pete (Oakes Fegley). Pete is a mysterious 10-year-old with no family and no home who claims to live in the woods with a giant, green dragon named Elliott. And from Pete’s descriptions, Elliott seems remarkably similar to the dragon from Mr. Meacham’s stories. With the help of Natalie (Oona Laurence), an 11-year-old girl whose father Jack (Wes Bentley) owns the local lumber mill, Grace sets out to determine where Pete came from, where he belongs, and the truth about this dragon.