Peter Rabbit's £35 million feature film
After a certain Marmalade-loving bear scored a huge box office hit across the globe, it was no surprise Hollywood scratched its head and considered what other mischievous British family favourite could be turned into a film.
That charming bear, Paddington, was already snapped up. Winnie the Pooh was Americanised and ruined some years ago. So enter Peter Rabbit, a cheeky lettuce leaf-loving bunny in a blue jacket, whose creator Beatrix Potter was born 152 years ago.
Peter’s battle to hide from angry gardener Mr McGregor – whose wife put Peter’s father in a pie – was first published, privately, in 1901 and was the charming (if somewhat dark) introduction to a wonderful world of woodland creatures and their often difficult interactions with humans which made Beatrix one of the world’s most popular children’s authors.
With more than 45 million The Tale Of Peter Rabbit books sold in 36 languages there is already a huge audience out there ready and waiting to see their favourite buck on the big screen.
Hollywood's new live action and computer generated Peter Rabbit film was given a budget of £35 million
In Japan the little rabbit is so popular there is a Peter Rabbit theme park with a brick-for-brick replica of Beatrix Potter’s Lake District home. Peter is a thriving £400 million global industry – and the film is going to make him even bigger.
‘My parents introduced Peter to me and I, in turn, introduced him to my own children,’ says the film’s American writer and director Will Gluck. ‘And it’s my very great honour to be directing a film that will bring him to cinemas everywhere.’
The modern film version of Peter is somewhat different to his Edwardian predecessor. This Peter, voiced by James Corden, helps to break into Mr McGregor’s house for a party and is a whizz at twerking. He may be charming and adventurous but when he has a serious fall-out with Mr McGregor, he attempts to electrocute him. Which, we have to agree, isn’t so charming.
No wonder some Beatrix Potter fans are already wary that the film will ruin her legacy. The phrase ‘turning over in her grave’ was whispered after the first trailer went out late last year, but Will insists that the essence of the quintessentially British Peter remains.
‘We didn’t change the story by any means,’ says the American, who wrote the revamped version of Annie as well as directing Easy A, starring Emma Stone. ‘But the books are quite short so we just kept it going.
'We painstakingly reproduced everything we could from the books and tried to honour every single moment of Beatrix Potter throughout the movie. If you love Beatrix Potter and you really know the books, you’ll realise what we did. In making this film we’ve always felt like humble custodians entrusted with Peter’s legacy.’
James Corden, the British comic actor who has become a talk show host and huge star in America, also insists that the film will make people adore Peter even more. ‘Every British child falls in love with Peter Rabbit sooner or later,’ says the father of two. ‘I hope that a new generation will see this film and rediscover the incredible books and storytelling of Beatrix Potter.
Writer and director Will Gluck says the Peter Rabbit film was painstakingly reproduced from the classic books
‘Peter is always going to be a rascal. He’s mischievous. But with the help of his friends he finds a way to grow up. I feel very excited and honoured to be part of the film.’
Like the Paddington films – the first of them was so popular that a sequel was released last year – Peter Rabbit is made from a mixture of live action with computer-generated imagery for the rabbits and friends. It has a £35 million budget and has been made with Animal Logic, the same Australian team behind award-winning cartoons The Lego Movie and Happy Feet.
Australian actress Rose Byrne plays a very modern incarnation of Beatrix Potter called Bea. An artist who adores her animals, Bea’s paintings of Peter, his cousin Benjamin and triplet sisters Flopsy, Mopsy and Cotton-tail re-create Miss Potter’s real watercolour artwork, in a nod to the bestselling author, who started work as an illustrator.
‘Bea’s an eccentric artist who is obsessed with animals,’ says the actress, who says she has made the film for her children, her two young sons with actor Bobby Cannavale, Rocco and Rafa. ‘It was like stepping back into childhood and using your imagination at full force.’
James Corden (pictured) who voices Peter Rabbit hopes the new film will help new generations to rediscover Beatrix Potter's storytelling
The story starts with the demise of Bea’s neighbour, cantankerous old Mr McGregor played by Sam Neill. Peter and his friends rapidly take over his garden and his house. A party scene shows Peter break-dancing and twerking and turning the house upside down.
When Mr McGregor’s son Thomas, played by Irish actor Domhnall Gleeson, arrives to claim his inheritance he is devastated at the chaos the rabbit and his friends have created and becomes determined to have his revenge on them. The battle between Thomas and Peter becomes a war, which sees Peter and his friends chase their human foe to London, where he works in the Harrods toy department. But both rabbit and man love Bea – and are forced to pretend to be friends to make her happy.
‘Thomas is very prim and proper, when he walks around Bea he has a stick up his backside,’ says Star Wars actor Domhnall. ‘You’re supposed to find him ridiculous before softening towards him. And the way that happens, I’m convinced, is because someone as brilliant and beautiful as Rose is playing Bea. I think anyone who Bea likes, the audience will like.’
The real Beatrix was the shy but strong-willed daughter of two wealthy parents who kept her and her younger brother Bertram away from other children to avoid germs and bad influences. She was always happier with her pets – which included rabbits, mice, snakes, snails, cats and a tame hedgehog called Mrs Tiggy-Winkle – than other humans. She would spend hours drawing and painting her animal friends and saw herself as an amateur scientist; when the animals died she would keep their skeletons for anatomical sketches.
Peter Rabbit was based on her own rabbit, called Peter Piper, of whom she was particularly fond. She would take him for walks on a leash and described in a letter how he liked to lie in front of the fire, ‘like a cat. He was clever at learning tricks, he used to jump through a hoop and ring a bell and play the tambourine.’
Beatrix first started writing illustrated short stories about Peter for her former governess Annie Carter Moore’s son Noel when he was five. It was Annie who convinced Beatrix that they should be turned into a book.
At first no publisher was interested, so Beatrix self-published 250 copies of The Tale Of Peter Rabbit, which quickly sold out. In 1901 publishers Frederick Warne & Co agreed to publish the book and it became an immediate success when it came out in 1902. Beatrix also created the world’s oldest licensed character after devising and patenting a Peter Rabbit doll, games and even wallpaper.
Work led to love for Beatrix, who fell for her editor Norman Warne. Her parents disapproved of the match – they didn’t want their daughter to marry a man who worked in ‘trade’ – but Beatrix, then 36, persisted. Tragically, a month after she accepted his proposal in 1905, Norman fell sick and died of what is now believed to be undiagnosed leukaemia. Beatrix finally found love nearly a decade later with her lawyer William Heelis, to whom she was married for 30 years until her death in 1943, aged 77.
In her lifetime she turned down several offers to make a film version of Peter Rabbit, even rebuffing Walt Disney. But surely even she would be happy now that a whole new generation will have the chance to enjoy Peter’s mischievous antics in all their animated glory.
Peter Rabbit will be in cinemas from 16 March.