Peter Pan is an animated feature film produced by Walt Disney based on the play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up by J. M. Barrie. It is the fourteenth film in the Disney animated features canon and was originally released to theaters on February 5, 1953 by RKO Pictures. Peter Pan is the final Disney animated feature released through RKO prior to Walt Disney's founding of his own distribution company, Buena Vista Distribution, later in 1953 after the film was released. Peter Pan is also the final Disney film in which all nine members of Disney's Nine Old Men worked together as directing animators.Disney had been trying to buy the film rights to Barrie's play since 1935.
He finally received them four years later, after he came to an arrangement with Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, to whom Barrie had bequeathed the rights to the play. His studio started the story development and character designs in the early-1940s, and intended Peter Pan as a follow-up to Bambi, but the second world war forced the project to be put on hold. Just like Pinocchio before it, the original pre-war character designs for Peter Pan were very different from the final product. The original version actually had Nana go to Neverland with Pan and the Darling children, and had a much darker ending. It was not until after the war that the actual production of the film commenced.
Margaret Kerry was Tinker Bell's live-action reference model, contrary to rumors that it was Marilyn Monroe. Margaret Kerry posed for reference film shots on a soundstage; the footage was later used by supervising Tinker Bell animator Marc Davis and his team when they drew the character. Kerry also provided the voice of the red-haired mermaid in the film.
Like Kerry, Bobby Driscoll was both the live-action reference model and voice actor for Peter Pan. Peter's flying and action reference shots were provided by dancer Roland Dupree.
Kathryn Beaumont, the voice of Wendy, eldest of the Darling children, also performed for the live action reference footage. In an interview, she said she had to hold out her arms and pretend to fly for all the scenes requiring it.
