Peter Pan was the final Disney animated feature released through RKO before Walt Disney founded his own distribution company, Buena Vista Distribution, later in 1953 after the film was released. Peter Pan is also the final Disney film in which all nine members of Disney’s Nine Old Men worked together as directing animators. In January 1939, Disney obtained the animation rights to the play by J.M. Barrie by outbidding Fleischer Studios, which was also developing animated feature films.
Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States military took control of the studio and commissioned Walt Disney Productions to produce training and war propaganda films, so pre-production work on Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland was shelved.
