He held a press conference, calling the production result 'that revolting movie.a gigantic melodrama of kitsch, commerce, plush and plastic.The makers of the film simply did not understand the book at all. Ende had co-written the script, but it was heavily changed during production to please American funders (and likely, American audience tastes).Īuthor Michael Ende, son of a surrealist artist father, vocally despised the divergent film after he had been persuaded by producer Bernd Eichinger (CHRISTIANE F.

Anyone alive in the 1980s can likely still sing along to the mulleted Kajagoogoo frontman Limahl’s ethereal title song, composed by Giorgio Moroder. In 1984, director Wolfgang Petersen (TROY AIR FORCE ONE) released that first feature film adaptation of the complex novel's first half, stopping right before Bastian enters the book and thus cutting the book’s meta-level. And when you do, know that, while Fantasia of course is an imaginary realm mostly brought to life at Munich's Bavaria Studios, the scenes of Bastian at his place and in the bookstore were shot in Gastown in downtown Vancouver. In its 2019 season, Canada’s Stratford Festival is putting the tale-within-a-tale about Bastian trying to save Fantasia from “The Nothing” onto their Avon Theatre stage.Īnd then there were three feature film adaptations of which the first is worth revisiting. Canada’s Nelvana produced an animated show and Montreal’s Muse Entertainment a TV series in the 1990s. Google created a beautiful (if oddly timed) doodle in 2016, for the book’s 37th anniversary not to mention merchandise from T-shirts to phone covers. Over the decades, the story went on to inspire rock albums, spin-off book series, musical, opera and ballet versions. The legend goes that reprints were delayed because the printer ran out of paper due to the unforeseen demand.

The book seemed to (magically) write itself: He had aimed for 100 pages but ended up with 500, after many a missed deadline and hundreds of more pages he wrote but scrapped. Years earlier, he had jotted down the story idea that went “boy literally falls into story while reading, having trouble finding his way out.” Each night, he wrote out the story, having his wife, actor Ingeborg Hoffmann, read the passages back to him during the day. Suffering from a bout of writer’s block after his earlier successes, Ende randomly pulled a piece of paper out of a shoe box full of ideas he kept.

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