Remake THIS TWO!!

Back in 1984 “Wolfgang Petersen” bought us to the fantasy world of Fantasia (crap name really) and the characters of Bastian, Atreyu, Night Hob and The Childlike Empress in the classic but aged “The Neverending Story”.
There were some dark and upsetting moments in this otherwise slightly slushy film. Artex succumbing to sorrow in the swamp of sadness (welling up thinking about it) and Atreyu with the Sphinx were moments I would not want to willingly watch as a child for fear of getting upset around others (have a thing about public displays of emotion).

However much I loved this movie, it has not aged as well as I had imagined. This is why I would like to see it remade today, but not as a child’s film, but as a film for adults.
Take away all the slush and the cutesy characters and ground them in the seriousness of their plight. Give us complex heroes and base all the creatures in a organic reality. Sure the central characters can be children, but make them believable in their roles. Make Bastian a teenager, but not a looser. Maybe make Atreyu a girl, a savage warrior on the cusp of woman hood. Please do not make the luck dragon a flying dog with scales (keep it dragon like and voiceless). And above all make it scary!! Do what Guillermo del Torro did in “ Pan’s Labyrinth ” and create a child’s vision of fantasy aimed at an adult.

I would seriously recommend a director of such visual flare as Jean-Pierre Jeunet to tackle this. I would trust him to do wonders with the material, and more importantly, loose the theme song.