Several studios and streaming services are reportedly chasing screen rights to German author Michael Ende’s beloved 1979 book “The NeverEnding Story”.
According to Deadline, there are multiple interested parties, and several multi-million dollar offers currently out there for what could become the next major fantasy screen property.
The tale follows a ten-year-old boy named Bastian who happens upon a magical book that tells of a young warrior named Atreyu who is given the task of stopping the Nothing – a dark force engulfing the wonderland world of Fantasia.
The first half of the book was famously translated into a film in 1984 by filmmaker Wolfgang Petersen which became a smash hit. A lower-budgeted sequel in 1990 adapted elements of the second half with a wholly original story becoming a third film.
The property has also been adapted for the stage and an animated series, but legal rights issues over the property have made further adaptations a complicated proposition for years.
Source: Deadline
