For people of a certain age, 'The Neverending Story' is one of those films that summarises their childhood.
As with the likes of 'The Goonies', 'Labyrinth' and 'The Princess Bride', the 1984 film - which was based on a novel by Michael Ende - is a firm favourite with those who grew up in the 1980s, telling the story of a young boy, Bastian, who gets drawn into a story about a fantasy world called Fantasia (called Fantastica in later films) which is in danger of being destroyed by a malevolent force called 'The Nothing'. Before 'Lord of the Rings' and 'Game of Thrones' made it to the big and small screens, Falkor the dragon was the stuff dreams were made of for '80s kids.
Now, the inevitable has happened and the film is being revived for a new multi-film franchise in a new joint venture between Michael Ende Productions and See-Saw Films (the company responsible for 'Heartstopper', 'Slow Horses' and more), according to Variety.
“The story is both timely and timeless, and really has an opportunity to be told in a fresh way,” said producer Iain Canning. "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."
There was talk of a remake as far back as 2009, when Leonardo DiCaprio's production company expressed interest in a new adaptation of Ende's book, but it seems that it ran into problems securing the rights to the book.
It's not yet clear how many films will be made in this new forthcoming series, but you can expect famous locations including the Ivory Tower, Goab the Desert of Colors, Silver Mountains, Spook City, Silver Lake and the Swamps of Sadness to feature - and it will be an "international global production".
