A New Film Adaptation Of 'The Neverending Story' Is In The Works

TV & Film

Mar 22

The NeverEnding Story is getting a reboot! Those millennials who were scarred watching Artax sinking into the Swamp of Sadness will hopefully be able to sit their kids in front of a new version of the same scene! Jokes aside, there’s much love for the 1984 The NeverEnding Story movie, due to the triple threat of a fantastic cast, stellar effects (that have aged well), and an ear-worm theme song.

But the heartwarming story was actually an adaption of a German novel, Die unendliche Geschichte written by Michael Ende. The company in charge of his estate, Michael Ende Productions says they have been inundated by offers to bring the tale of Bastian and Atreyu back to audiences. They’ve been understandably protective of a book with such a range of fantastical locations and creatures. See-Saw Films, a British/Australian company, best known for The King’s Speech and Lion won out. The production company is a stranger to fantasy, but they have a reputation for bringing home silverware. See-Saw’s films and television shows have, to date, won five Oscars, twelve BAFTAs, twelve Emmys, and twenty-seven AACTAs. See-Saw has envisaged The NeverEnding Story as a series of live-action films, so this could turn into a franchise if handled correctly.

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In an interview with Variety, Iain Canning, one of the studio founders spoke about the project’s intention to film in Germany, just like the original movie, as well as other international locations. Canning also said that they are now on the lookout for the crew to take The NeverEnding Story forward.

“The journey, in many ways, starts now. There’s been a lot of anticipation from people who love this story about what the next steps would be. For us, we now need to speak to writers and directors and hear their passion for the material.”

Some executive producers (who have joined the production from either Michael Ende Productions or See-Saw Films) have already been named. Lorenzo De Maio, Emile Sherman, Roman Hocke, Ralph Gassmann, Wolf-Dieter Von Gronau, Simon Gillis and Helen Gregory are all on the roster.

Although it’s early days, and there’s still no distributor or script for this picture, let’s keep our fingers crossed The NeverEnding Story makes it to cinemas. It has the potential to be spectacular.