Richard Donner Made A Major Change To The Lost Boys' Script The Second He Signed On
The lost boys in J.M. Barrie's book, "Peter Pan" are just that — lost. They spend their days playing and getting into mischief with Peter Pan, the ultimate lost boy who guides them in their tomfoolery. The children are always young, so their idealistic charms and innocence have yet to be ravaged by the pains of adolescence. The only woman they desire is that of their own mother, and even though they are by many accounts, little rascals, they are still lovable little boys.
If you are unfamiliar with the 1987 vampire flick, "The Lost Boys," it can be a bit of a head-scratcher then, to find that the film — not the film's Peter Pan inspiration — is the first thing to pop up in a google search for the name. This is made especially more scandalous when you realize that "The Lost Boys" is not about young children looking to fulfill their maternal desires, but rather it is a film about some really hot vampires hanging out in Santa Carla, California. Sure, they get into trouble just like their younger, literary counterparts, but their kind of trouble is very different from Nibs and Slightly.
"The Lost Boys" is directed by Joel Schumacher, and much of its appeal comes from the fact that while vampires are supposed to be scary, the vampires of the film are also the bad boys of your deepest fantasies, always keeping you seconds away from having to use that carefully chosen safe word. But the undeniably sexy undertones of the film were not always at the forefront of the script. In fact, if it wasn't for Richard Donner — the original director before Schumacher signed on — "The Lost Boys" might have been a very different film.
A new kind of vampire in town
When "The Lost Boys" was first pitched, it was supposed to be a family-friendly movie. "It was very much 'Goonies Go Vampire,' said director Joel Schumacher in an interview with Empire. James Jeremias had envisioned a script that riffed on the lost boys concept from "Peter Pan," with a more horror-tinged edge. As he also told Empire, "Since 'Peter Pan' had been one of my all-time favorite stories, I thought, 'What if the reason Peter Pan came out at night and never grew up and could fly was because he was a vampire?'" The idea turned into a full-fledged script meant more for children than for teens. However, when Richard Donner signed on to direct the film, he thought the original idea was a tad bit soft.
Jeremias told Empire that Donner "wanted to make the boys older," clarifying his statement by adding, "He said, 'Old enough to drive,' but what he meant was, 'Old enough to f***.'" What followed was attempts at getting another draft of the script written, but Jeremias and Jan Fischer (who co-wrote the script with Jeremias) were tied up in other projects and couldn't assist. Donner was able to enlist the help of Jeffrey Boam but then left the project himself to work on "Lethal Weapon," instead. Without a director, it seemed like the lost boys were really just that. Lost in a sea of rewrites with no clear sign of ever coming to fruition on the big screen.
Damn sexy vampires
Thankfully, Joel Schumacher was brought on to direct the film, and he happened to have the same reaction to the script as Richard Donner. The story was simply too kid-friendly. He told Empire that it was "charming and adorable, and very G-rated," which unfortunately had no appeal to Schumacher. However, after doing some thinking, he came up with a way to make the Santa Clara vampires grow some much-needed hair on their chests.
To Schumacher, he saw the vampire trope as a metaphor for sex, so it was important to him to make the vampires of "The Lost Boys" sexy. "[Dracula] appears at the windows of beautiful young women, where he systematically sucks the fluid from their body, making them his slaves," said Schumacher, highlighting the stories over sexual undertones. And so, with the help of Jeffrey Boam, a more mature version of "The Lost Boys" was born.
Schumacher explained to Empire that he was absolutely set on making the cast of the film visually appealing. And with stars like Kiefer Sutherland, Jason Patric, Brooke McCarter, Billy Wirth, and Alex Winter making up the titular lost boys, he definitely succeeded. Still, he claims that "these actors weren't cast because they were pretty," but there's no denying that objectification was seemingly part of the goal when writing the new version of the script. Schumacher doesn't seem to see a problem with this. He told Empire that he's "been accused by journalists [...] of objectifying men and women sexually." But he always makes sure to ask them, "Do you have a problem with that? What's the bad part?! Why is that so terrible?" Whether or not you agree with Schumacher though, his version of "The Lost Boys" is definitely something you can't help but want to sink your teeth into.