On Neverland

Finding Neverland: Interview with writer David Magee
by Michael Bergeron

Finding Neverland places the audience alongside James M. Barrie as he creates the immortal story of Peter Pan. Naturally in true movie style the film stars the handsome and ever resourceful Johnny Depp as Barrie who in real life was a meek, almost unsightly man.
Recently speaking with David Magee the writer of the film, the creative process of seeing the film to fruition, as well as some insights into Barrie himself, are revealed. Peter Pan is 100 years old this year.

MB: You mentioned at the screening last night that Universal had made a deal with Miramax regarding the final release date of Finding Neverland. They released Peter Pan last Christmas and Miramax has Finding Neverland this year.
DM: The movie was on track to be released last year. At the time I thought changing the release date was wrong. This was all happening so far above my head in terms of the business aspect of things, I was hearing about it third or fourth hand. In retrospect, with the Peter Pan centennial happening, without the comparisons between the two films, it is actually working out well for us. At the time I was desperate to have the movie come out. I just wanted to see it on the screen.

MB: You wrote the script in 1998.
DM: In Hollywood six years is not that long. Five months of that was me writing the first draft. The play The Man Who Was Peter Pan by Allan Knee was performed in a workshop off 42nd Street. I was also a member of that workshop. The producer (Nellie Bellflower) had also done one of my plays out in the Hamptons, so she knew me as a writer. I was in her office one day and she was talking about the project. I told her I wanted to write it. ‘I’ll dive right in and if you don’t like it throw it away.’ I knew there was a story there, and she gave me that chance.
Five months later I had a draft. Someone from Miramax had actually seen that first staged reading of Knee’s play, which is very different but does have a wonderful tone. So it was on their radar. But after I wrote my draft Nellie shipped it to her friend who’s an agent. The agent said they would be happy to shop it around. Richard Gladstein became another producer, he had a relation with Miramax. When he became involved Miramax became very interested.
Now a year has elapsed. Contracts had to be signed. Then there are some small re-writes to prepare it to show to a director. Once we got the script the way we want it, the question is who is the right director? Every time you approach a director you tell them that they are the only one you are considering. So it takes them four weeks just to get around to reading it. So that kind of back and forth takes a while. Harvey Weinstein settled on Marc Forster just before Monster’s Ball came out. I happened to be in Los Angeles that week and I got a call from Gladstein. He said to come by the office, ‘We’re going to screen the film Monster’s Ball for you.’ After seeing the film I was a little stunned. It was not what I expected. But as soon as I met Marc, he was polite, very sensitive to the material. Everything he said about the script made sense. He had a feeling of restraint for the script – not letting the performances get too big, not letting the sentimentality run away with the story.
Now the film is going into its third year. You have to get the actors in the right season. Those things took up the next part of the process. By the time that year has evolved you’re ready to open and they tell you it is going to be one more year because of some rights issues. A year and a half ago it was finished and they wanted to release it as a summer movie.

MB: You mention the rights issue. The play Peter Pan was first performed in 1904. Haven’t the rights elapsed?
DM: It’s a wonderful story. James Barrie would have made a fortune off Peter Pan. But shortly after the play premiered he donated all subsequent royalties to the Great Ormond Street Orphanage. Because he cared about children he did that. An act was written into British law that the rights to Peter Pan would be extended to donate money to this charity in perpetuity. When I was first writing this I had no idea how easy or difficult it would be to get the rights to Peter Pan. I had as few lines as possible from the play in my first draft. Once Miramax got involved it was not considered a problem. With the second draft a few more line found there way in. Then Marc came on board and some more scenes from Peter Pan were added. Ultimately Universal [distributor of Peter Pan domestically], and Columbia and Revolution Films – it was a huge budget film – had bought all subsequent rights to motion picture use of everything else.

MB: Of the many writers from the first half of the 20th century Depp actually resembles W. B. Yeats. [I show Magee a picture of Yeats.]
DM: He really does look like him.

MB: But James Barrie was this diminutive man, right?
DM: He was a small man with a huge bushy moustache that hid his mouth, and a receding hairline. And sad eyes. He was not a handsome man. He stayed a boy in a sense. He did not grow into his body.

MB: The film was in production under the title Neverland.
DM: My original title was Neverland. I love that title. There was a very small, dark independent film called Neverland that came out a couple of years ago. It’s not about Barrie at all, I never saw it. Our film became J. M Barrie’s Neverland, which no one was ever entirely satisfied with. Then in the last few months someone suggested Finding Neverland.

MB: Did Barrie and his wife actually get divorced during the original run of the play Peter Pan?
DM: No, that was one of the things we abridged for the movie. His wife did run off with another man. The divorce was extremely painful for Barrie to confront. Much more so than we had time to go into in the film. Also Kate Winslet’s character [Sylvia Llewelyn Davies] had five boys, not four as in our film. But the fifth one was a baby and we didn’t want her carrying around a baby through the whole film.

MB: Charles Frohman, the character that Dustin Hoffman plays, how integral was he to Barrie’s success?
DM: He was a close friend of his and he was his main producer at that time. And as a side note that has nothing to do with this film, Frohman actually ended up dying on the Lusitania. This deeply affected Barrie. He had many tragedies that circled around his life.