20 facts you might not know about 'Hook'

Spielberg, already a superstar director, was on board with a Disney version of a new Peter Pan movie that was closely in line with the story of the 1953 movie. At the time, Spielberg was considering it as a musical, with Michael Jackson in the lead role. Jackson wasn’t interested, though, and the project never happened at Disney.

The project moved from Disney to Paramount in 1985, with Dustin Hoffman cast as Captain Hook. Preproduction began, but then Spielberg’s son, Max, was born. Wanting to be home to be a dad, Spielberg dropped out of the project. In 1987, he abandoned the project entirely.

Nick Castle is best known for playing Michael Myers in Halloween, but he’s also been a director as well. He had directed a few movies prior to getting hired to direct Hook after Spielberg dropped out.

After the Michael Jackson-led musical idea, Spielberg had wanted Tom Hanks for the role of Peter Pan. When he dropped out of the Peter Pan project, Spielberg actually considered directing Big, before deciding against it. However, it was Hart who was in charge when Robin Williams was hired to play Peter Banning, the former Peter Pan.

In 1989, the project moved from Paramount to TriStar, at which point it got the title of Hook. At this point, Castle was directing with Hoffman and Williams starring. Both the actors had issues with Castle, though, and the head of TriStar happened to be Mike Medavoy, who had once upon a time been Spielberg’s first agent. He was able to get Spielberg back to direct.

While Hoffman was cast early as Captain Hook, he wasn’t the only named considered. Also considered for the role were Christopher Lloyd, Donald Sutherland, and David Bowie.

Joseph Mazzello auditioned to play Jack, Peter’s son, but was considered too young for the role. He must have made an impression on Spielberg, though. Mazzello would be cast to play Tim in Jurassic Park.

Fraught relationships between fathers and sons have been involved in Spielberg’s movies basically from the beginning, and Hook is no different. This movie seemed to particularly strike a chord with him, though. In addition to saying that he has “always felt like Peter Pan,” he found Peter Banning’s professional pursuit getting in the way of being a dad relatable as well.

Spielberg called in a lot of favors in filming Hook. Glenn Close, David Crosby, and Jimmy Buffett all play small roles as pirates on Hook’s crew. Additionally, George Lucas also has a brief cameo as well.

Fisher, who was of course in Star Wars, has a cameo alongside Lucas. However, she also did some work behind the scenes. A longtime script doctor in Hollywood, Fisher did some work on Tinker Bell’s dialogue.

Roberts was one of those “America’s Sweetheart” actors, but don’t tell that to the crew of Hook. It has long been said that Roberts, who played Tinker Bell, was called “Tinker Hell” on set. Spielberg has even said it was hard to work with her on the movie.

Hoffman plays Hook, but he also lent his voice to another role. He is the voice of the pilot that says, “This is your captain speaking” when the Bannings are on the plane to England.

Wendy Darling is largely played by Maggie Smith, who wore a lot of makeup to make the then-56-year-old look 92. We do see teenage Wendy for a bit, though, and she’s played be a teenage Gwyneth Paltrow. The daughter of two film professionals, this was only Paltrow’s second movie.

When Tinkerbell needs to be revived, Peter claps his hands. While this may have been confusing to people who have only seen the 1953 film version of Peter Pan, anybody who has seen the stage version knows the score here. When Tinkerbell needs to be revived in the play, Peter implores the audience, mostly kids, to clap their hands to make it happen.

Toward the end of the movie, Peter bestows his sword to one of the Lost Boys. None of the kids knew who it would be, though. Spielberg and Williams had discussed it, but they didn’t tell any of the kids and let Williams improvise the scene so that the actors playing the Lost Boys would have a genuine, unpracticed reaction.

Hook did not go great from a production perspective. Originally slated to a $48 million budget, the actual budget ended up somewhere between $60 million and $80 million. The problem? Shooting ran a whopping 40 days over schedule.

The budget may have been bloated, but Hook was still a Spielberg movie starring Williams and Hoffman. Indeed, everything largely panned out. The movie made $300.9 million worldwide, making it the fourth-highest-grossing film of the year.

The Academy Awards bestowed five nominations on Hook. It was up for Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup, Best Original Song, and Best Visual Effects. Alas, it didn’t win any of them.

Even though ‘90s kids have affinity for Hook, they may be the only ones. The film has a 29 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert didn’t like it, and, funnily enough, given the millennial love for it, Peter Travers said that it would “only appeal to the baby boomer generation.”

Spielberg has beaten himself up over Hook throughout the years. He has said that he “felt like a fish out of water” and “didn’t have confidence in the script.” Perhaps his thoughts are best summed up in this statement from a 2013 interview, "I wanna see Hook again because I so don't like that movie, and I'm hoping someday I'll see it again and perhaps like some of it."