We’ve known this for a while, but still: Oh my god, they’re remaking Pete’s Dragon, and it’s been totally updated for 2016. Gone are the washed out pastels of the ’77 original; gone, too, are Pete’s overalls, which were wrongfully robbed of a Supporting Actor Oscar. Gone, too, is the charming little town in which they lived. Instead, the new Pete’s Dragon stars Oakes Fegley as a kid (that’s Pete) who was forced to survive in the forest, kind of like a supernatural Mowgli, only with fewer CGI jungle cats and more, well, CGI dragons. (Just one, to be precise.)
The new Pete’s Dragon is directed by David Lowery, who also directed 2013’s Terrence Malick rip-off Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, so this flick is probably gonna be intense. Well, that’s what this newest trailer seems to indicate, as well as the fact that it has pretty squarely captured the whole fairytale aspect of the story, which is this: Pete got lost in the woods and lived there happily for six years with his best friend, a dragon named Elliot. Then Pete goes back to society and all of the adults find out about Elliot, and, in an allegorically significant plot point, attempt to murder Elliot (a stand-in for their childhood, obviously).
Aside from Fegley, the film will star Bryce Dallas Howard, Karl Urban, Robert Redford and Wes Bentley. There is an Adult Pete, who will be played by Craig Hall, but it’s not clear how he’ll play into the film, as the trailer mostly shows little Pete.
Watch the trailer below. The film’s out August 12.