Whether you have happy memories of Falkor flying through the skies or life-changingly-devastating memories of that horse dying in the mud, you probably remember The Neverending Story, director Wolfgang Petersen’s movie from 1984. You probably don’t remember the movie’s two sequels from the ’90s, but we’re not here to talk about those today.
Petersen’s movie was of course based on the same-titled 1979 novel from Michael Ende, and multiple brand new adaptations of that source material are now in the works.
Variety reports this morning that Michael Ende Productions and See-Saw Films are joining forces to bring The Neverending Story back to the big screen with “multiple live-action films.”
The website notes, “Variety hears that Ende’s estate had been fielding interest from across the globe over the last few years, including from studios and streamers.”
In the classic tale, “A troubled boy dives into a wondrous fantasy world through the pages of a mysterious book.”
Iain Canning and Emile Sherman will produce the new movies for See-Saw alongside Roman Hocke and Ralph Gassmann for Michael Ende Productions.
[Related] ‘Man and Witch’ – New Fantasy Throwback Pays Tribute to ‘Neverending Story’
“The story is both timely and timeless, and really has an opportunity to be told in a fresh way,” Canning tells Variety this week. “And part of the specialness of the book is that you can go back to it at different ages in your life and find different levels of meaning. So how wonderful that we have this opportunity to do a fresh perspective that will have new layers and meanings. We just believe that every generation deserves their own journey into Fantastica.”
“We’ve been completely overwhelmed with interest from the television and film industry in recent years,” adds Gassman. “But it was only about four to five years ago when we felt it was right to go back to Fantastica with new, fresher attention. So then we looked at hundreds and hundreds of requests and just thought, let’s see if we find a potential partner amongst them that is so compelling that they make us jump into the boat with them and go on this crazy adventure. But we knew we had to do it right and find the right partner, and luckily See-Saw was amongst them.”
You can read more about the team’s plans over on Variety now.