Actors Hugh Jackman and Levi Miller attend the premiere of ‘Pan’ at the Ziegfeld Theatre on Sunday in New York.

In the century since Scottish author J.M. Barrie created Peter Pan for a stage play then a book, the Neverland universe has inspired movies, books, TV shows, plays, videogames and even a pop psychology syndrome describing emotionally immature men.

For the latest iteration of the classic story involving Tinkerbell, Captain Hook and the Darlings, the focus is on the origins of the boy who famously wouldn’t grow up.

Warner Bros’ “Pan” arrives in US movie theaters on Friday, a live-action 3D feature aimed at children that imagines the beginnings of Peter’s story: how he got to Neverland and learned to fly.

“I think Peter Pan has taken on a life of its own in the same way that Sherlock Holmes has,” said director Joe Wright, referring to Arthur Conan Doyle’s crime-solving British literary phenomenon.

“Peter has incredible courage and fun and so I think that reminds us of childhood in an honest and beautiful way. It’s no surprise that Barrie was writing at the same time as Freud. His story is somehow deeply psychologically accurate and acute,” Wright said.

For Wright, the appeal of Peter Pan had little to do with a reluctance to grow up — a complex embodied by the late singer Michael Jackson and his Neverland ranch in California with its carousel, animals and Peter Pan references.

“I always wanted to grow up. I hated childhood. I found it a really difficult period of life. I was bullied and I was quite scared a lot of the time. So Peter Pan offered an escape from all of that,” he said.