Hook is a 1991 American fantasy adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by James V. Hart and Malia Scotch Marmo.

Hart developed the script with director Nick Castle and TriStar Pictures before Spielberg decided to direct in 1989.

[3][4][5] Peter Banning, a workaholic fixated on success, has a strained relationship with his wife, Moira, and their children, Jack and Maggie, due to his constant absences and broken promises.

During Christmas, the family travels to London to visit Moira's grandmother, Wendy Darling, who cared for Peter as an orphan.

Returning from the event, Peter and Moira discover the children are missing, with a note left behind signed by Captain James Hook.

Maggie resists, but Jack, hurt by Peter's broken promises and failure to save him, begins to side with Hook.

While infiltrating the pirate town, Peter sees Jack playing in a baseball game organized by Hook, who has taken on a fatherly role.

His shadow leads him to the ruins of Wendy's house, where he remembers his past: as an infant in the early 1900s, he ran away from his mother, fearing growing up and dying, and was brought to Neverland by Tinker Bell.

Tinker Bell then returns Jack and Maggie home while Peter bids farewell to the Lost Boys, appointing Thud Butt as their new leader.

In addition, a number of celebrities and family members made brief credited and uncredited cameos in the film:[6] musicians David Crosby and Jimmy Buffett, actress Glenn Close, and former boxer Tony Burton appear as members of Hook's pirate crew; Star Wars creator George Lucas and actress Carrie Fisher play the kissing couple sprinkled with pixie dust; two of Hoffman's children, Jacob and Rebecca, both under 10 years old during filming, briefly appear in scenes in the "normal" world; and screenwriter Jim Hart's 11-year-old son Jake (who years earlier inspired his father with the question, "What if Peter Pan grew up?")

Steven Spielberg found a close personal connection to Peter Pan's story from his own childhood.

Peter's "quest for success" paralleled Spielberg starting out as a film director and transforming into a Hollywood business magnate.

"Anytime anything flies, whether it's Superman, Batman, or E.T., it's got to be a tip of the hat to Peter Pan," Spielberg reflected in a 1992 interview.

[11] The project was taken to Paramount Pictures,[12] where James V. Hart wrote the first script, with Dustin Hoffman already cast as Captain Hook.

[17] By 1989, Ian Rathbone changed the title to Hook, and took it from Paramount to TriStar Pictures, headed by Mike Medavoy, who was Spielberg's first talent agent.

[14] Dodi Fayed, who owned certain rights to make a Peter Pan film, sold his interest to TriStar in exchange for an executive producer credit.

Filming began February 19, 1991, occupying nine sound stages at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, California.

Hidden hydraulics were installed to rock the set-piece to simulate a swaying ship, but the filmmakers found the movement distracted from the dialogue, so the idea was dropped.

"[24] Spielberg's on-set relationship with Julia Roberts was troubled, and he admitted in a 1992 interview with 60 Minutes, "It was an unfortunate time for us to work together.

She "couldn't believe this person that I knew and trusted was actually hesitating to come to my defense... it was the first time that I felt I had a turncoat in my midst.

Julie Andrews recorded one song, "Childhood", at the Sony Pictures Studios, so that Maggie Smith could lip-sync it on-set; it was meant to be sung by Granny Wendy to her grandchildren in their bedroom.

Two remaining songs survive in the finished film: "We Don't Wanna Grow Up" and "When You're Alone", both with lyrics by Bricusse.

In November 2023, La-La Land Records announced a remastered and expanded three-disc ultimate edition of the film's score in its entirety, to be released December 1, 2023.

[38][39] It ended up making a profit of $50 million for the studio, yet it was still declared a financial disappointment,[40] having been overshadowed by the release of Disney's Beauty and the Beast, and a decline in box-office receipts compared to the previous years.

The site's consensus states: "The look of Hook is lively indeed, but Steven Spielberg directs on autopilot here, giving in too quickly to his sentimental, syrupy qualities.

No effort is made to involve Peter's magic in the changed world he now inhabits, and little thought has been given to Captain Hook's extraordinary persistence in wanting to revisit the events of the past.

The failure in Hook is its inability to re-imagine the material, to find something new, fresh or urgent to do with the Peter Pan myth.

[45]Peter Travers of Rolling Stone magazine felt it would "only appeal to the baby boomer generation", and highly criticized the sword-fighting choreography.

[46] Vincent Canby of The New York Times felt the story structure was not well balanced, feeling Spielberg depended too much on art direction.

I'm a little less proud of the Neverland sequences because I'm uncomfortable with that highly stylized world that today, of course, I would probably have done with live-action character work inside a completely digital set.