Going_Solo — 12 years ago(January 18, 2014 04:18 AM)

I came across this 1991 article from Starlog magazine which features an interview with Dieter Geissler who produced The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter. Dieter also produced the first and third movies, which I cannot understand as the third is so different in appearance and content
Dieter also says in this 1991 interview how he plans to do The NeverEnding Story III with Bastian meeting Grogramon the Lion shame it never came to pass, and instead we got that goof ball of a movie with Jason James Richter and the silly muppet like creatures with comedy all the way through
Here is the interview:
Fantasy films directed primarily at
children have, over the years,
developed a bit of a reputation. And
that reputation, with the exception of Disney
films, is that they usually don't work and/or
they usually don't make any money. The
Neverending Story, a 1984 adaptation of
Michael Ende's bestselling fantasy novel,
proved the rare exception to that rule. Critics
loved it. Kids loved it, and consequently, its
worldwide box office take was right up there
in blockbuster country.
Nearly seven years after its release, peo-
ple are still trying to figure out what hap-
pened. One of those scratching his head the
hardest is the film's producer Dieter
Geissler.
"I can only guess," concedes Geissler,
sipping a cup of coffee in his Los Angeles
hotel room. "What I can tell you was that I
was totally surprised that the first film turned
out to be so successful."
Emphasis on "the first film" for, as
Geissler wraps up American business and
prepares to fly home to his native Germany.
The Neverending Story II: The Next Chapter.
the long-planned sequel, is already playing
to packed houses in Europe. The further
adventures of Bastian in Fantasia have just
begun unspooling here. Geissler, who is
candid in saying that "kids today are usually
too sophisticated for this type of film." feels
that The Neverending Story films "are a
special case.
"Kids seem to be sensitive to the mes-
sages and the philosophies that are expressed
in these movies. The bad guys, as repre-
sented by the Nothing and the Emptiness, are
ideas and emotions that kids think about and
can relate to. We've never felt that we had to
beat the children over the head to make them
get these films' messages."
The Neverending Story II: The Next
Chapter which Geissler describes as
"being based on a few chapters of Ende's
book" begins in the real world where
young Bastian Bux (Jonathan Brandis) is
facing problems at school and with his wid-
owed father (John Wesley Shipp). In desper-
ation, Bastian once again finds himself in the
mysterious bookstore that houses the en-
chanted book The Neverending Story. The
boy is drawn back into the book's fantasy
world where he is reunited with the boy
warrior Atreyu (Kenny Morrison) and such
familiar creatures as Falkor the flying luck-
dragon and the Rock Biter, and introduced to
new creations Mudwart, Lavaman and Junior
Rock Biter. Bastian also finds himself pitted
against a black-hearted sorceress Xayide
(Clarissa Burt), who has destructive plans
for the future of Fantasia.
Directed by George Miller from a Karin
Howard script, The Neverending Story IT.
The Next Chapter features an army of pro-
duction designers and FX people that includes
Robert Laing, Gotz Weidner, Derek
Meddings, Albert Whitlock, Colin Arthur
and Guiseppe Tortora.
Geissler, who reports that a third
Neverending Story is already in pre-produc-
tion, says that a sequel was never far from
his mind. "We've always planned
Neverending Story as a trilogy. The book is
just too rich to leave at one film."
But Geissler's good intentions ran afoul
of a complicated legal battle that saw
the producer wrangling over who owned
the movie rights and a suddenly wavering
Ende who insisted that he have a say in any
future film treatments of his work. Years
later, Geissler had ironed out the legal
questions, but a very basic one remained.
"How would an audience years after the
first film react to a sequel?" he reflects. "The
first film has continued to have a long life in
video stores and on television, so we knew
people were still interested in the story and
the characters. But until we did" a second
film, we would never really know for sure."
He began producing The Next Chapter a
full year before lensing began, working with
conceptual artist Ludwig Angerer on the se-
quel's basic visual designs.
"The Neverending Story was the first
special FX picture I ever worked on, and
consequently, I had to listen to specialists
who probably sold us on more than was
necessary," he says. "Knowing the budget
for the sequel would be less and that we
would have to deliver more, I decided that it
was important to know how, technically and
visually, we were going to do this film."
Geissler then hired screenwriter Karin
Howard for the first of what would ulti-
mately be 14 drafts of the script. It was only
when all the pre-planning was completed
that Geissler hired the person wh