Warner Brothers has acquired the rights to Wolfgang Petersen‘s 1984 fantastical nostalgia piece, The Neverending Story. The plan is to take the cherished property, and give it a modernized treatment while looking deeper into the German novel for which the original was based.

Currently, parties interested in teaming with WB to bring the re-imagining to life include: Leonard DiCaprio‘s Appian Way Productions and The Kennedy/Marshall Co. — who showed their immense talent with the recent Best Picture nominee, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

The Neverending Story follows a young boy named Bastian, your average, everyday kid who doesn’t really fit in and gets picked on a lot. One day Bastian finds a very special book called The Neverending Story which follows the hero Atreyu and his adventures through the land of Fantasia. Shockingly, while being swept away into this amazing world, Bastian realizes he himself is greatly intertwined in the story and that only he can save Fantasia and its people from complete devastation.

As movie fans, we all feel pain when these remakes are announced. Usually, I just remind myself that the original will always be there to love, no matter how many terrible attempts to recreate it happen, but this particular one is a little harder to swallow. While many 80s movies have nostalgic importance to me, three really stand out above the rest: The Princess Bride, Labyrinth, and The Neverending Story.

We can always hope that they do a great job and create a good movie for a new generation. For example, Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was stepping on some insanely sacred ground, and while is was nowhere near the 1971 Gene Wilder classic, it was still a fun and entertaining remake.

Let’s just pray it doesn’t turn into The Wiz.

[Source: THR]