TO GET to Neverland, the fairytale setting of J.M. Barrie's century-old children's classic Peter Pan, you travel down the Pacific Highway from Brisbane.

Turn into Warner Roadshow Studios at Coomera, and there you'll discover that the site's eight sound stages have been taken over by the $200 million film.

Peter Pan, being directed by Brisbane-born filmmaker P.J. Hogan – reared at Tweed Heads, and famous for Muriel's Wedding and My Best Friend's Wedding – is the biggest movie yet filmed in Queensland.

It's so big that the live-action adventure, the first film starring a boy in the title role – 13-year-old American Jeremy Sumpter – is being financed by three movie studios. Universal, Columbia, and Revolution have joined forces for the project, which is planned for release next Christmas.

Pre-production for the film, involving a crew of 500 workers, started last June, the first scenes for the film were shot on October 1, and there are still 10 more weeks before filming ends at the Coomera site.

"Then we have hundreds of special-effects shots to be integrated into the film by Industrial Light and Magic in Los Angeles," says Jocelyn Moorhouse, Hogan's partner and fellow director (Proof, How To Make An American Quilt) who is executive producer on this film.

Hogan and Moorhouse, and their children aged 13 and seven, have made Los Angeles home for the seven years since Muriel's Wedding and Proof made the husband and wife internationally known filmmakers.

"Peter Pan was offered to P.J. about two years ago, but he read the script and didn't think it would make a 'big' enough movie. Then he read a biography of J.M. Barrie (the Scots playwright and novelist who died in 1937) and saw a much deeper resonance for the story," Moorhouse says.

"He wrote about eight drafts of the script, written with Michael Goldenberg (previously credited for Jodie Foster's Contact) and came up with a version that provides excitement and adventure, as well as being faithful to Barrie.

"There are some adjustments, such as making Wendy (played by 12-year-old English girl Rachel Hurd-Wood) more a 21st-century woman, something of a warrior.

"Barrie's Wendy was a little bit wimpy, and we didn't think modern girls would like that."

Moorhouse is excited at the performance given by Rachel, whom she describes as "like a young Kate Hepburn – very tough, very witty".

Jason Isaacs, who starred alongside Mel Gibson in The Patriot and was introduced into the Harry Potter series this season as the evil Malfoy Sr, is playing dual roles: Captain Hook and Mr Darling.

Other adults in the cast include Lynn Redgrave as Aunt Millicent, Olivia Williams (from The Sixth Sense) as Mrs Darling, Richard Briers as Smee, Geoffrey Palmer as Sir Edward Quiller Couch and young French leading lady Ludivine Sagnier (8 Femmes) as Tinkerbell.

Hogan searched Australia, England and most parts of the English-speaking world before finding his Peter Pan in Los Angeles. Sumpter, born in Kentucky, began acting at the age of 10, with his film debut the 2001 psychological thriller Frailty, opening in Australian cinemas on January 30.

"Someone like a 13-year-old Errol Flynn, handsome, charismatic, good-humoured and possessing an outstanding athletic ability" was the criteria set out during the search for this 21st-century Peter Pan, and Hogan initially thought Sumpter was not quite tall enough for the part.

"But his agent reminded us he'd grown a lot since we first saw him in Frailty, and when he was tested, he was just perfect," Moorhouse says. "He's very smart, very athletic. I think everyone will love him in the role."

The curly-haired, reed-slender Sumpter, who turns 14 on February 5 – and who has continued his schooling while filming, with social studies his favourite subject – is a normal teenager who loves bouncing around.

His boundless energy caused some anxious moments for the film production over Christmas, when the young star, his parents, and his sisters – one of them his twin – were holidaying on an island in the Whitsundays.

Leaping around in his holiday apartment, Jeremy collided with a ceiling fan and suffered a gash to his forehead that required medical attention in Mackay, including 100 micro stitches over three layers of skin, and a visit to a plastic surgeon in Brisbane to help disguise the damage.

But on this day, filming on the sprawling jungle set created by award-winning production designer Roger Ford, whose long list of credits include Babe, Rabbit-Proof Fence and The Quiet American, Sumpter shows no after-effects from his holiday injury as Hogan directs him in a scene with the

Cinematographer Donald McAlpine (Moulin Rouge  and practically every famous Australian film of the past 30 years) is filming the colourful footage which will be sent later via satellite to Los Angeles.

Given a rest break, Jeremy – who clomps around in a favourite pair of Australian sheepskin ugh boots – grabs a paper cup of Tiny Teddy chocolate biscuits and reflects on life as Peter Pan.

He may be unknown to most movie fans now, but this time next year, at the tail of a massive worldwide publicity campaign to launch the film's Christmas release, he will be as well known as the young stars of the Harry Potter  films and The Lord of the Rings series.

"The flying and the fencing have been great fun," says the cheerful young actor, who trained with specialist instructors for three months to prepare for the demanding role which involves flying sequences and swordfights.

A fan of the Harry Potter series, Jeremy's only regret about his Peter Pan assignment in Queensland is the fact it's taken him away from watching his favourite baseball team, the San Francisco Giants, and footballers the San Francisco 49ers.

He's convinced, after four films in three years, that he's found what he wants to do all his life, and says he's had "great fun" working with the seasoned Isaacs as the menacing Captain Hook.

"I call him Evil Man – only joking," Jeremy says. "He's Jason to all the kids."

On another part of the sprawling lot, the tanned Isaacs – who has been living on the Gold Coast with his partner and nine-month-old daughter since August – is spending more time practising fencing left-handed with his professional tutor, Gary Worsfield.

"Captain Hook has the hook on his right hand, and I'm naturally right-handed so I've had to become proficient with my left hand, and it's not easy," he says.

Isaacs, who has had featured roles in recent films such as Black Hawk Down, The Tuxedo and Windtalkers, says working on the Gold Coast has been more like a holiday from a chilly England.

Surviving local challenges such as "spiders large enough to eat a cat" and a snake that slithered over his Mermaid Beach lawn one recent day, Isaacs says he would be happy if Peter Pan were the film that never ended.

"If you could find me another job immediately this is over, I could stay here, couldn't I?" he pleads.

Peter Pan finally should be the film that makes Isaacs a household name, and he admits that he's thoroughly enjoying himself as Hook, after finishing his scenes as the gentle Mr Darling.

But he says he won't be hanging out to read reviews of his performance. "I do the best I can, that's all I can do. I act as well as I can, and do the part.

"When you finish what you have to do, the film is out of your hands. What happens then is not something you can control.

"I just have to hope that the phone will ring and there'll be an offer of work somewhere decent that I can take my wife and baby, who's already babbling in an Aussie accent," says the likeable actor, wearing a North Carolina cap that he bought to remind him of working on The Patriot.

"You're not allowed to keep your costumes, you know, so from the Gold Coast I have a Sea-FM T-shirt and some Billabong clothing," he says.

Jeremy has been asked not to risk physical injury surfboard riding during the extended shooting schedule, so has been content to boogie-board at the beach whenever the opportunity arises.

Production designer Ford didn't suffer physical damage preparing some of the largest scaled sets ever constructed in Queensland – but did lose a pair of new shoes during a 14km trek with director Hogan into the Binna Burra rainforest on the Lamington Plateau.

"We had to look at a giant fig tree there because it looked like the sort of trees that P.J. wanted to see in Neverland's jungle, so we walked and walked, and I'm not someone who walks very far at all," he says.

The fig became the key to the Never-Land set, which is a colourful mix of rainforest trees, ferns and shrubs, and notices to warn film crew "minimal crew on the clover pad".

"It would have been impossible to shoot in the real rainforest, so we had to make our own," says Ford, who also has created a moated castle around Barrie's skeleton-covered Marooner's Rock, where Peter Pan and Hook duel.

Australian Oscar-winning special effects consultant John Cox, based on the Gold Coast, is constructing a massive head and jaws for the 12m man-eating crocodile that every child knows from Peter Pan.

Ford – who found life as an architectural student too boring, so joined the BBC on series such as Dr Who before settling in Australia permanently in 1971, working on the ABC's Aunty Jack series – says designing Peter Pan had been the most rewarding assignment of his career.

"It was a job I didn't expect to get," he admits. "When I had a meeting with P.J. in Los Angeles to discuss the project, I was so jet-lagged that when the meeting ended and I left the room, I mistook a cupboard for the door.

"But they still hired me. I've never worked with a director who had such a detailed visual concept of what he was trying to create on screen. This is magical, and I think it's going to be great."

"Do you believe in fairies?" Barrie asks in Peter Pan. "Say quick that you believe. If you believe, clap your hands."

Ford believes children worldwide – and their adult companions – will be clapping enthusiastically when his favorite film project is released on screens everywhere.