Geek Information March 20, 2024: A New ‘The Neverending Story’ Movie-Collection Adaptation Is within the Works; First ‘Alien: Romulus’ Trailer Launched

A new film-series adaptation of Michael Ende’s 1979 fantasy novel The Neverending Story is in the works. After Ende’s novel received an English translation in 1983, the original film series took flight like Falkor the luck dragon in 1984 with the release of the cult favorite The NeverEnding Story, which was followed by two sequels.

According to Variety, a new joint-venture partnership between Michael Ende Productions and See-Saw Films will bring a new franchise of The Neverending Story movies to life. Dr. Wolf-Dieter von Granau, the executor of Ende’s estate, granted the rights to the partnership.

Variety reports, “First published in 1979, The Neverending Story became a bestseller in Germany and would be translated into 45 languages, selling millions of copies worldwide. At the center of the story is the awkward but imaginative child Bastian Balthasar Bux who, while escaping from bullies, discovers the mysterious book The Neverending Story about the heroic Atréyu and his mission to save the magical realm of Fantastica — a world of dragons, giants, vast kingdoms, and deadly swamps — and its ruler, the Childlike Empress, from being destroyed by force known as ‘The Nothing.’ But the more he reads, the more Bastian realizes he’s not simply an uninvolved spectator and he soon finds himself transported into Fantastica himself, flying atop the luck dragon Falkor.”

“The story is both timely and timeless, and really has an opportunity to be told in a fresh way,” said See-Saw producer Iain Canning. “And part of the specialness of the book is that you can go back to it at different ages in your life and find different levels of meaning. So how wonderful that we have this opportunity to do a fresh perspective that will have new layers and meanings. We just believe that every generation deserves their own journey into Fantastica.”

Ende estate curator Roman Hocke added, “We need stories like we need the air to breathe and water to survive. They give our inner worlds quality and with this quality we make decisions of quality. Stories make the world better. And The Neverending Story is the story of all stories.”

First Official ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ Photos Released

Warner Bros. has released the first photos of Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice starring Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Jenna Ortega, and Catherine O’Hara. The long-awaited sequel to 1989’s Beetlejuice hopes to scare up some box office dollars on September 6.

The first-look Beetlejuice Beetlejuice photos published by Entertainment Weekly show Keaton back in character as “bio-exorcist” Betelgeuse as well as Ryder and O’Hara reprising their roles as Lydia and Delia Deets, respectively. The new photos also give us our first glimpse of Ortega as Lydia’s daughter, Astrid. Ortega — who plays Wednesday Addams on Burton’s Wednesday Netflix series — is no stranger to the goth look thanks to working with Burton.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice picks up decades after the original movie following a death in the Deetz family. “That’s all I will say,” said Burton to EW. “There’s something that happens that sets things in motion.”

Burton added that it felt like an “out-of-body experience” to see Keaton back in Betelgeuse drag for the first time in several decades. “He just got back into it,” said Burton of Keaton. “It was kind of scary for somebody who was maybe not that overly interested in doing it. It was such a beautiful thing for me to see all the cast, but he, sort of like demon possession, just went right back into it.”

A New TV Series Based on the Gucci Family Saga Is in Development

Three years after Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci comes the announcement of a new TV series based on the Gucci family. The time the real Gucci family is involved as members of the production team.

Founded in 1921 by Guccio Gucci (pictured, left), the Italian luxury fashion house Gucci based in Florence came to represent Italy’s dolce vita. Guccio’s son, Aldo (pictured, right), helped make Gucci an iconic worldwide brand. Al Pacino played Aldo in House of Gucci.

According to Variety, French film and television group Gaumont has signed a deal with family representative Giorgio Gucci to make a TV series about the Gucci fashion house. Variety writes, “As the story goes, Guccio Gucci worked as a bellboy at the Savoy Hotel in London, where he became inspired by the luxury leather suitcases carried by British aristocrats. Di dalam 1921, Gucci opened his first retail location in Florence and his four sons — Aldo, Vasco, Rodolfo, and Ugo (his adopted stepson) — were soon brought into the family business. Aldo, the eldest of the five brothers, opened the first Gucci boutique in Rome in the 1930s. His intuition and innovative use of quality materials turned Gucci into the iconic brand featuring the double G logo.”

Family feuds and infighting over subsequent decades resulted in the sale of Gucci to French conglomerate Kering in the 1990s.

“We are interested in telling the story of a family business, because that is what the Gucci saga is about,” said Giorgio Gucci, who was born after Kering bought the brand. “Gucci was certainly one of the first Italian brands to cross our borders and land in the United States, and from there to bounce around the rest of the world, becoming the absolute protagonist of the dolce vita here in Rome.”

Giorgio Gucci added, “How the [Gucci] family destroyed itself for the sake of business is something that interests me a lot and it’s not scandalous. In fact, it’s a very human matter, or even more to the point a psychological or anthropological matter. But it’s only by really getting to the bottom of these characters that we can fully understand them.”

Ewan McGregor Says That an Intimacy Coordinator Was ‘Necessary’ for ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’ Love Scenes With Wife, Mary Elizabeth Winstead

Married couple Ewan McGregor and Mary Elizabeth Winstead welcomed an intimacy coordinator on the set of A Gentleman in Moscow. McGregor plays Count Alexander Rostov and Winstead plays Anna Urbanova on the upcoming limited Showtime series.

The official A Gentleman in Moscow description reads: “Set against the backdrop of post-Revolutionary Russia, Count Alexander Rostov is stripped of his title and material wealth, and placed under house arrest for life in a grand Moscow hotel. Unlikely friendships, fleeting romance and the hotel’s occupants open the Count’s eyes to the hidden wonders of the hotel, and the enduring power of human connection. After losing everything, he must learn that true riches are found in love, courage, and community.”

In an interview with Radio Times, Ewan McGregor said that having an intimacy coordinator on set was “necessary” even though the love scenes involved his real-life wife. “It’s still necessary, because it’s also about the crew, and it’s odd to be naked in front of people, it’s odd to be intimate in front of the camera,” said McGregor. “If you were doing a dance scene, you’d have a choreographer. It’s an important part of the work now, because it’s somebody that the director and actors meet in the middle.”

The first of eight episodes of A Gentleman in Moscow premieres March 29 on Showtime. Click here to watch the trailer.

‘Harold and the Purple Crayon’ Trailer: Zachary Levi Stars in Adaptation of Beloved 1955 Children’s Book

Sony has released the first trailer for Harold and the Purple Crayon, a film adaptation of the 1955 children’s book of the same name by Crockett Johnson. Directed by Carlos Saldanha, Harold and the Purple Crayon stars Zachary Levi, Lil Rel Howery, Benjamin Bottani, Jemaine Clement, Tanya Reynolds, Alfred Molina, and Zooey Deschanel.

The official Harold and the Purple Crayon description reads: “Inside of his book, adventurous Harold (Zachary Levi) can make anything come to life simply by drawing it. After he grows up and draws himself off the book’s pages and into the physical world, Harold finds he has a lot to learn about real life—and that his trusty purple crayon may set off more hilarious hijinks than he thought possible. When the power of unlimited imagination falls into the wrong hands, it will take all of Harold and his friends’ creativity to save both the real world and his own. Harold and the Purple Crayon is the first film adaptation of the beloved children’s classic that has captivated young readers for decades.”

Harold and the Purple Crayon scribbles its way into theaters August 2. Click here to watch the first trailer.

‘Alien: Romulus’ Trailer: Fede Álvarez’s Stand-Alone Sequel Looks Scary and Tense

The first trailer for Fede Álvarez’s Alien: Romulus offers a look at the new crew terrorized by those acid-blooded xenomorphs. The stand-alone sequel that takes place between the events of Alien Dan Aliens stars Cailee Spaeny, Isabela Merced, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, and Spike Fearn.

The official description of Alien: Romulus — the seventh film in the Alien franchise — reads: “While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face-to-face with the most terrifying life-form in the universe.”

In an interview with Variety, Álvarez said, “Alien: Romulus takes place 20 years after the first one, and for me, I don’t see it as upsetting the canon. It’s something I take personal pleasure in doing, making sure that it all tracks and is all part of the big Alien franchise story — not only in the story, but also when it comes to how to make it. I talked with Ridley [Scott] as a producer, and had long chats with James Cameron about it at the script level. After the movie was done, I showed it to them.”

Álvarez added, “But for me, Alien works at its best when it’s scary, and when it’s action like Aliens. The horror and the shock of that world is personally what I liked the most.”

Alien: Romulus screams into theaters on August 16. Click here to watch the first official trailer.