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Fieldfisher acted for long-standing client, British-Australian film and television production company See-Saw films, on their deal with Michael Ende Productions to create a new film series adaptation of the 'The Neverending Story'.
Achieving global acclaim and selling millions of copies, the novel was first published in 1979. The author Michael Ende passed away in 1995, but the rights to his best-selling novel remain under the care of his estate. The adaptation rights to the novel were granted to a new partnership between Michael Ende Productions and See-Saw Films by Dr. Wolf-Dieter von Gronau, executor of Michael Ende’s estate. Producers on the film include Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, Roman Hocke, and Ralph Gassmann. Lorenzo De Maio joins as an Executive Producer, along with Wolf-Dieter Von Gronau and Simon Gillis and Helen Gregory of See-Saw. Michael Ende Production was advised by "Sernetz Schaefer, Munich-Düsseldorf".
This deal caps the race for one of the hottest fantasy properties yet to be tapped for modern audiences, with the estate having fielded interest from across the globe over the past few years.
The Fieldfisher team advising on the rights deal was led by Stephen Saltzman, Head of the International Media Group out of London, and included Bahne Sievers, Florian Streiber and Andre Suttorp from Fieldfisher's offices in Germany. The firm's dedicated Media Group provides tailored guidance to producers and distributors of film and television on all aspects of the development, financing, production and exploitation of media assets. The market leading team has a particular expertise in structuring complex cross-border, co-financing and co-production arrangements for media assets and securitising media revenue streams. They regularly advise on strategic investments, joint ventures, and mergers and acquisitions in the media sector, and so are attuned to the market norms and typical deal structures for transactions in this space, while at the same time helping clients like See-Saw (which Fieldfisher also assisted in establishing new television production company, Pure Fiction, with Hamilton Hodell and Tom Winchester last year), innovate in order to adapt to this dynamically changing industry.