Disney’s planned remake of Pete’s Dragon is now fast coming together. The likes of Oakes Fegley, Robert Redford, Bryce Dallas Howard and Oona Laurence are already onboard, and now TheWrap reports that Wes Bentley (American Beauty, Hunger Games) has signed on too.
The original 1977 movie was a mix of live-action and animation, about a boy who escapes his horrible adoptive parents and befriends a dragon called Elliott. This time around the dragon with be CGI, and the story will also be rather different (it also won’t be a musical). Here Pete was raised in a forest by the dragon after his parents died in a car accident. He has to take on a group of loggers who are cutting down all of the trees.
Robert Redford is set play a local who tells tall tales involving dragons that no one believes, the equivalent of Mickey Rooney’s Lampie from the original.
It’s not known exactly who Bentley will be, although it is known that the filmmakers have been on the lookout for a mill owner and his greedy brother, so Wes may have scored one of those roles.
David Lowery is directing from a script he co-wrote with Toby Halbrooks. It’s believed the movie will start shooting in the next couple of months.
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