Peter Pan can easily be set that they are a bit older. here could be a good way of having peter/wendy be around 23/22 and it still fit in with the theme of "i don't want to go up", basically heres a modern version.
You start the movie off with 22 year old Wendy fresh out of college at her 3 day of work. She was an art major with a cooking minor in college. She wanted to be artist-chef who's beautiful and delicious creations would be featured around the globe. yet, here she sits in some office building in NY, in a cubical, answering customer support call ins for Citibank. She still lives at home in her moms house with her younger siblings, her parents are divorced, we found out later they got divorced on her 16th birthday, and while most children would kinda lose their childhood, she fought to keep her strong, yet now, after fighting to stay youthful, she's seems like the past few months that war is finally over. Her dreams are crushed, she has no way into her starlit dreamy profession, she's stuck at a desk job for a big bank.
We see her one night going home, all of this realization thats she's die in inside flustering, goes into her room, close to tears and her mom comes trys to figure out wats up, but like a teenager, she yells and storms off to her room. after crying on her bed for a bit, she sits all introspectively and laughs, thinking she's lost the shining bliss of youth and kept the negative immaturity. she falls asleep thinking that there obviously is no hope, she shouldn't get pissed at her mom and its just worth it to giv in into adult hood.
That night, a 23 year old peter pan comes a-knocking and normal "don't giv up on being youthful and lets be children forever" hilarity insures with no seriousness but rather the same childhood glee as seen in the original cartoon, and her and her brothers go to never land.
A similar plot line and wat not ensues but underneath it there is more of an adult subliminal love story going on between peter and wendy, (when i say adult i don't mean NSFW i just mean like u see in all romantic comedies).
We get to the part where tinker bell grows and explodes her house. peter finds a picture in there of a girl. he storms out looking upset and sits on the edge of the tree, to a sunlit night looking over all of never land. this is the first time we see peter acting more his age and not such like a kid, even tho he's 23. him and wendy get in a serious convo and get to appoint where peter explains himself.
It starts like the same story as the original, he was left as a baby, think brought him to neverland…but then it shows him as a 15 year old (at least he looks only that young) boy in neverland, fighting hook, when after shoving hook down and beating him with his usual childhood manner, hook says some sharp tounge serious little speech about how peter will always be a child and never find happiness.. and then in some way it actually hit peter mentally, like hook had never spoken to him in such dark tones in all the time they've been at battle. it got him upset and he started being mentally tortured with it. for a week he wouldnt get get out of bed. he was depressed. finally one night, in some fit of depression, he uses the last bit of a happy thought he could muster, and flys himself into the 2nd star to the left and straight on till night. crashing down on and falling asleep in the streets.
Now, depleted of pixy dust, he loses his happy. and starts growing up. then one day 7 years down the line, he's working as a bagger at Kmart bc he can't get any other job, he doesn't kno how to act around women so he doesn't hav a girl friend, and he's just a loser. so that night he just lying there in bed, unable to sleep, when he stands up walks to the window and flys back to never land. he made the realization this world sucks, and even if its all hell ever do and never find "real happiness" its better to be act and fight like a kid than live the way of an adult and be miserable.
They kiss.
Peter's recollection over, the movie continues, and they beat hook. the whole time wendy is trying to figure out wat she's gonna believe in. in the end, thru some device that wakes her up to the realization that there can be real happiness with normal life and even if its not exactly wat u wanted u can always keep the inner child alive and there is always a way to make that dream come try, even if not to the exact way as originally wanted.
Peter doesn't like this. Im going with a more dark idea here that isn't normal. i don't want them to end up together. they argue about this and in the end they decide to part, wendy back for normal and peter to stay in neverland. they part with the adult understanding that each has chosen a way to believe in wat is best and accepting that some idea or really anything only has value if one individually gives it value mentally themselves and real happiness is wat u choose it to be.
