The Neverending Story is being adapted for a new series of films

“Dream a dream
And what you see will be”

The 1984 film adaptation of Michael Ende’s fantasy novel was a touchstone film for many of us growing up. A new documentary, Life After The Neverending Story, will show us what happened to the various people involved in that film.

Today Variety have the news that The Neverending Story will be returning to the big screen in a new series of films from Michael Ende Productions and See-Saw Films. The new partnership has been granted the rights by Ende’s executor Dr. Wolf-Dieter von Granau. Iain Canning and Emile Sherman will produce for See-Saw alongside Roman Hocke and Ralph Gassmann for Michael Ende Productions.

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“The story is both timely and timeless, and really has an opportunity to be told in a fresh way,” said Canning, speaking to Variety. “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.”

See-Saw have previously adapted other books for film and TV – Slow Horses, Heartstopper, Lion, The King’s Speech and The Power of the Dog

“We’ve been completely overwhelmed with interest from the television and film industry in recent years,” added Gassman, the AVA exec who works with Michael Ende Productions. “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.”

It is still very early days in the process and the next step is to look for the creative team to work on the new films.

“The journey, in many ways, starts now,” Canning said. “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.”

“We need stories like we need the air to breathe and water to survive. They give our inner worlds quality and with this quality we make decisions of quality. Stories make the world better,” Roman Hocke said. “And ‘The Neverending Story’ is the story of all stories.”

I am up for a new adaptation of the book. The fact they are going back to the original novel, and that Michael Ende Productions are so heavily involved is a great sign. See-Saw Films have also made some incredible films and shows so there is a lot of potentional for this being done right.