Turns out The Neverending Story lives up to it’s name
During my recent film studies, one of my lecturers drove a point home very early in my learning:
Never forget that you are in the business of filmmaking. When it comes to funding, budgets and using other people’s money, you’d better have a product that sells.
Seems a few Producers might be taking this advice to the extreme. Now, I don’t want to be one to continually rant about ‘stupid remakes’ for the sake of joining the chorus, because, to be honest, some remakes are warranted and the odd attempt turns out to be worth the effort. The upcoming remake of WOLFMAN, for example, is a remake I am very much looking forward to.
Still, it is quite disheartening to read headlines that the classic 80′s fantasy gem THE NEVERENDING STORY is going to be shafted by a studio for more cash. It’s a knee-jerk reaction, one that can’t be helped by those who saw the film as kids and loved every single frame. Have we actually watched it in the last five years? Most of us probably have to admit to answering ‘no’. Would we not go see the remake!? ‘Yes!‘ comes the reply, almost on principle alone.
I’ll probably find myself reluctantly sitting in a cinema seat when Warner Bros. churns this out in 2012. I’ll have a 5-year-old son by then who’ll be eager to see it. I’ll mention the original, even the book — he’ll shrug me off, tell me to ‘shoosh’ while he watches the engaging array of CGI colour on the screen. He’ll leave, satisfied with his afternoon and programmed to ask for the DVD (or Blu-ray) for Christmas, and the studio will have gotten away with it…
The real disappointment with most remakes comes about a year later when you go to your local video store to rent the original NEVERENDING STORY, and it is no longer stocked. Only the remake is available.
(Even worse is when the young clerk behind the counter has no idea what you’re talking about.)
And, as much as we might kick and scream that remakes are film blasphamy and ‘Hollywood is out of original ideas’, there is still every chance the right team might get behind the prject and produce a worthy remake. I’d sure be impressed if that were the case.
