Producer Dieter Geissler talks about The NeverEnding Story II ...

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 who is usually
the first on board any film, director George
(The Man from Snowy River) Miller (not to
be confused with the Mad Max director of
the same name)




"George greatly admired the first film so
we felt he would be the ideal choice to di-
rect," recalls the producer. "The reason he
was the last person to come on the picture
was that I knew that big FX pictures can
burn a director out real fast when they're in
on a picture from the earliest pre-production
stages. What I wanted was for the director to
come in fresh and not already worn out and
to be able to put his ideas on an already solid
structure."


The New Characters:


Casting The Neverending Story II's child ac-
tors entailed looking at 600 people before
the principals were chosen. The price one
pays, chuckles Geissler, when the age of
your characters is on the edge of puberty.

"We knew we would have to recast the
kid roles from top to bottom because the
children from the first film are obviously too
old now. We even had some difficulties
when it came to dubbing in new dialogue
during post-production on the sequel. The
children's voices were already starting to
change. So, when we start Neverending
Story III, these actors will already be too
old."

Four months prior to production begin-
ning (in locations at Bavaria Studios near
Munich), Geissler and Miller met with the
FX team to finalize their concepts for Silver
City, Xayide's Horok Castle and a shimmer-
ing, futuristic Venice.

"The first Neverending Story was basi-
cally done with a blue screen and
scale model creatures. This film contains
more model work and many matte paintings.
The giant juggernauts are men inside suits.

"Falkor was a much more complicated
effect," Geissler continues. "We used five
different-sized creatures. The largest
weighed two tons, was 39 feet long and was
controlled by a dozen different puppeteers.
On the surface, Falkor looks the same, but




we've definitely made great strides. This
time everything works, The ears, lips,
eyes — everything has its own distinct
movement. The creature even maintains a
constant breathing rhythm. I think audiences
will notice that we've put the effort into
making this a bigger, better picture."

Filming began on The Neverending Story II in
early 1990 and almost immediately ran into
a major logistical problem.

"We had been promised that a third big
stage would be built," relates Geissler "Our
plan was to have first and second unit shoot-
ing simultaneously on the first two stages
and have optical and other FX work being
done on the third. But for some strange rea-
son that I have yet to figure out. the studio
decided at the last minute not to build the
third stage. It forced us to shoot first and
second unit on the same stage at the same
time.

"That, in turn, made things doubly diffi-
cult because we also had limitations on how
long our child actors could work. We solved
that problem by having the child actors only
do one rehearsal before we began filming. It
also helped that George was familiar with
working with children, and so, maximized
the time we had the children on set by
shooting with as many as three cameras on
every scene."


This is The Next Chapter, not the last, so
expect to see Atreyu ride again in a
second sequel.




Geissler laughingly remembers, however,
that Miller's enthusiasm for the project
caused a strange problem during the 16-
week shoot.

"We had worked the whole shooting
schedule out on computer, down to the day
and the number of shots we needed to get.
Unfortunately, what we hadn't counted on
was George being so afraid of falling behind
schedule that he ended up putting us ahead
of schedule. Which, in most cases, would be
great except that, in our situation, FX that
were projected to be ready on a certain day
were not yet ready. We had one situation
where George's enthusiasm had put us two
days ahead of schedule and we had to sit
around with nothing to shoot. So, I told
George to take it easy and take his time be-
cause he was messing up our schedule."


The Final Books


The Neverending Story was published on
Christmas 1979. Its combination of unique
characters, a colorful fantasy world and a
real and highly palatable message struck a
chord with both children and adult readers.
The depth of Ende's novel was not lost on
Geissler.

"There is so much happening in this
book. It's an amazing story that works on so
many different levels. It's a fantasy adven-
ture for children. For adults, it is full of ideas
from major religions and philosophies. It's a
sprawling fairy tale that's a delight for all
ages."

And it is a fairy tale from whose pro-
jected third installment Geissler obligingly
drops a few story hints.

"Bastian will return to Fantasia and will
meet with a huge desert lion made of fire.
The lion gives him a magic sword which will
play a prominent role as Bastian goes closer
than ever before to the ivory tower. Beyond
that — well, I guess everybody will just have
to wait and see."

Geissler says that each film has, thus far,
only touched on a few chapters in Ende's
book. "We've definitely got enough of
Ende's book left to do a third film and
there's still enough left over to do a fourth,
but I'm not thinking beyond getting the
second film into the theaters and beginning
pre-production on the third.

"I don't see Ende writing another
Neverending Story book because the films
have been so successful. He's an artist who
doesn't think in such business-like terms.
But who knows? He might eventually write
another book which would also lend itself to
film. We'll just have to wait and see."

Geissler turns reflective as he contem-
plates The Neverending Story films. "These
films are a wonderful opportunity to
make people dream and hopefully read.
We've done a faithful translation of Ende's
book, but there's so much more for people to
discover if they'll just pick up his book or
any other books that will inspire a sense of
fantasy," Dieter Geissler says "Story is
about the ability to create something in one's
self. We've got to return to reading if we
want to protect our own fantasies — and to
protect the dreams in ourselves."




Fantasy Father


John Wesley Shipp has a theory about
auditioning. When a decision is a long
time in coming, the chances are it isn't
coming. That was pretty much the situation
in summer 1989 when the actor, currently
starring in The Flash, auditioned for a role
and lost it because he was too old.

"But what I discovered was that the
casting people thought I would be right for
another film being cast and sent my audition
tape to Germany."

Where it fell into the hands of the pro-
ducer of The Neverending Story II: The Next
Chapter. Producer Dieter Geissler liked what
he saw and cast Shipp in the pivotal role of
Bastian's widowed father, succeeding
Gerald (Major Dad) McRaney.

"It's my first dad role," quips Shipp, "and
I'm pretty much in the thick of what's going
on because this time the story is centered
around a father-son relationship. Bastian
goes into the book and becomes involved in
The Neverending Story, but my character
discovers the book, reads it and, in the end,
has a major impact on the final personal
decision that Bastian has to make."

John Wesley Shipp was born in Norfolk.
Virginia and, at an early age, studied piano
and voice. Shipp studied acting and music at
Indiana University for two years before
heading to New York to pursue an acting ca-
reer. He spent most of the 1980s as a fixture
on daytime television, starring in the soap



operas Guiding Light, As the World Turns
and Santa Barbara. His theater credits, prior
to The Flash, include Safe Sex, Tamara
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Sit Down and Eat
Before Our Love Gets Cold.

"The major story in The Neverending
Story is Bastian's adventures in the book."




I am so upset that Dieter's original plans for The Never Ending Story III never happened as it seems that it could have been a good film.... I wonder what happened ?