Movie: Trivia
During filming, on his second day on the set, Dustin Hoffman lost the tip of a finger in an accident when a folding chair collapsed and dropped him to the floor. Doctors were unable to reattach the finger tip. To manage the pain, Hoffman performed one day of shooting on morphine. In one scene, he keeps his hand in his pocket to hide the bandages.
This film was originally scheduled to be released in fall 2003, but Columbia Pictures, which had the rights to J.M. Barrie's play for their film Peter Pan (2003), refused to allow Miramax to use certain scenes from the play in Finding Neverland (2004) if it were released at the same time. Miramax agreed to delay the release of Finding Neverland (2004) by one year in exchange for the rights to use Barrie's words.
Dustin Hoffman played the title role in Hook (1991), based on the Peter Pan book by J.M. Barrie.
During the formal dinner scene, Johnny Depp placed a "fart machine" under Julie Christie's chair. He had a remote control that he used to trigger a fart sound from the device. The children are laughing more at that than from playing with the spoons.
Although the movie killed off Arthur Llewellyn-Davies before Sylvia and J.M. Barrie met, in reality, the couple were alive and well even at the play Peter Pan's premiere.
As in the movie, it has been a tradition for a girl to play Peter Pan in stage productions.
Director Cameo: [Marc Forster] one of the workers in the scene where J.M. Barrie (Johnny Depp) visits the costume room at the playhouse.
According to producer Richard N. Gladstein, more than 50 directors passed on the project.
Johnny Depp was the first of the cast members to sign on to the film. Kate Winslet was next.
There were actually five Davies children. The fifth child (Nicholas "Nico" Llewelyn Davies) has a hard to notice spot in the play — He is part of the inspiration for Micheal. (Micheal Nicholas Darling) Since he was very young and is not noticed by many people in the play anyway, he wasn't included in the film. His daughter does appear in the film, however. She is the woman in the scene that takes place after the first showing of Peter Pan. She says something like, "You're Peter Pan?" Her name is Laura Duguid.
In actuality (not the film), Peter Llewelyn Davies was not J.M. Barrie's inspiration for the Peter Pan character. His younger brother, Michael, was. Michael is also said to be Barrie's favorite of the children, not Peter. It is not certain why Barrie then chose to name the main character Peter. One idea why is because of his brothers, Peter behaved the most like an adult at a young age. Barrie wished he had had more of a childhood, so he immortalized him as the symbol of youth.
When J.M. Barrie and the Llewelyn Davies family are traveling by buggy to Mary Ansell Barrie's (James's wife) cottage, a flock of sheep stops in front of the buggy and it is forced to stop. This is included in the film because the buggy is an original from the late 1800s and is not able to properly run. To make it go, it is pushed over the hill. To cover for it stopping suddenly at the base of the hill, director Marc Forester decided to have the sheep block the road.
In the film, Johnny Depp spies Dustin Hoffman's character reading through the Peter Pan playbill, mocking the character names. The original script, however, called for Dustin Hoffman to be dressed in Captain Hook's costume as he playfully read the playbill. Upon reading that scene, Dustin said to director Marc Forestor, "I'm not being Hook again!" The script was then changed.
During the opening scene most of the extras wanted to go through the left door so they could shake Dustin Hoffman's hand.
The cowboys-and-Indians scene begins with a sign for the "Great Ormond Mining Co." This is a reference to the Great Ormond Street Hospital, which owns the rights to the play.
Laura Duguid, the daughter of the youngest child who did not appear in the movie, brought to the set the engagement ring that J.M. Barrie was going to propose to Sylvia with in real life. Sylvia died before he had the chance.
At the beginning of the movie, when Barrie is seen pacing the corridor outside the auditorium, the carpet under his feet is worn and thread bare, suggesting that many play-writes had paced there many times. This was inspired by the play-write Neil Simon who makes mention of it in his autobiography, which one of the films writers had read.
- Source: IMDb.com