Pete’s Dragon Blu-ray Combo Pack | Digital HD Director: David Lowery Screenwriter: David Lowery, Toby Halbrooks Cast: Bryce Dallas Howard, Oakes Fegley, Wes Bentley, Karl Urban, Oona Laurence, Robert Redford Distributor: Walt Disney Studios Rated PG | 103 Minutes Release Date: November 29, 2016
This year’s Pete’s Dragon comes off the heels of Disney’s recent live-action adaptation successes like Maleficent, Cinderella, and The Jungle Book. While the original film was never as popular as some of these remakes, it has gained a cult following and David Lowery’s reimagining resonated with critics. Now, the film is available for you to own for your home entertainment pleasure on Blu-ray/DVD or Digital Download.
In this reimagining, a 10-year-old boy orphaned boy named Pete (Oakes Fegley) is discovered living in the woods, and he claims to have been there with his friend Elliot, a giant green dragon. A local park ranger named Grace (Bryce Dallas Howard) takes him in, while trying to discover the truth about Pete’s situation. While his story seems far-fetched, Grace’s dad (Robert Redford) has been telling the tale of a mythical dragon in the woods for decades. Meanwhile, Elliot goes looking for Pete, only to come up against Karl Urban’s crew of lumberjacks, who are on the hunt for the dragon.
Pete’s Dragon Director: David Lowery Screenwriter: David Lowery, Toby Halbrooks Cast: Bryce Dallas Howard, Oakes Fegley, Wes Bentley, Karl Urban, Oona Laurence, Robert Redford Distributor: Walt Disney Studios Rated PG | 103 Minutes Release Date: August 12, 2016
Looking at David Lowery‘s Pete’s Dragon, you might not have known that it was based on the 1977 Disney film of the same name. In fact, the only similarity that the two films share between each other is that there is boy whose friend just so happens to be a real live dragon. Normally these reimagined stories would involve contemporary tweaks while staying true to the source material. Just look at The Jungle Book or Cinderella. But Lowery didn’t set out to that with Pete’s Dragon. Instead, his film deconstructs the idea of a remake of a Disney classic, and he turns it into something that resembles those childhood bedtime stories that your parents would read to you.
Disney’s Pete’s Dragon is not your ordinary reimagining of a Disney classic. Director David Lowery brings a new sense of wonder and imagination to the Disney classic, while still maintaining the themes about a 10-year-old boy named Pete (Oakes Fegley) who has lived in the forest with his best friend Elliot, who just so happens to be a dragon. In the film we are introduced to Grace (played by Bryce Dallas Howard), a forest ranger who forges a maternal relationship with the young boy and helps him adjust to living with his fellow humans while also coming to terms with the fact that there has been a dragon living in a forest she regularly patrols.
We were invited to sit down with a group of journalists to talk about the new vision of Pete’s Dragon with Howard, where she shared her experience working on the film with her fellow co-stars. Also talked about below is what you can expect to see in Jurassic World 2 and more.
Disney’s reimagining of the classic Pete’s Dragon will be hitting theaters at the tail end of the summer blockbuster season. It was a bit surprising to hear that the film would be getting the treatment given that the original never really found huge success, but did get a cult following. However, with David Lowery‘s directing and the cast’s young leads, Oakes Fegley and Oona Laurence, the film has found place where it can stand alongside some of the great live-action adaptations the studio has been delivering, and stand side by side with the original film.
We were invited to sit down with the cast and Lowery during the film’s press day, so we will have a lot of content from the film coming in the next few weeks leading up to the release. We had a chance to talk to the real stars of the film, Fegely and Laurence, who play Pete and Natalie, respectively. During our interview, we talked about what sort of games they played during breaks in between sets, what it was like working with a dragon that wasn’t there, what doing their own stunts was like (yes, they did their own stunts), and much more.
Disney has released an official trailer for Pete’s Dragon, the next in the line of remakes of their older movies. We saw a teaser trailer for the movie released back in February.
Unlike most of Disney’s remakes lately, which are updated live-action takes on their classic animated features, this one is a remake of their 1977 feature of the same name, which was a mixture of live-action and animation.
You can read more about the movie, give the new trailer a watch, and see a new poster below.
Students of the Unusual™ comic cover used with permission of 3BoysProductions
The Mercuri Bros.™ comic cover used with permission of Prodigal Son Press