Producer
Dieter Geissler declared that he always intended to make a trilogy out of
Michael Ende's
The Neverending Story, finding the book "just too rich to leave" at one film, but his plans to follow the original film, which only covers half of the novel, were postponed as Ende sued Geissler and the production company, insisting that he have a say in any future film treatments of his work. In a 1997 promotional interview for the film's sequel,
The NeverEnding Story III, producer
Tim Hampton stated that the crew had to allow Ende to review their produced work. ,
Argentina, the waterfall where Bastian dives returning to his human world. As soon as the legal problems were solved, Geissler started a year-long pre-production working with conceptual artist Ludwig Angerer, to ensure the film's design and technical ambitions would fit into a lower budget, along with averting the problems the first film faced with its effects. Geissler also hired screenwriter Karin Howard, who contributed 14 drafts until the final screenplay, which draws inspiration from most chapters in the second half of Ende's novel. , the building where Mr. Koreander's bookstore is located that appears too
in the first film. Geissler opted to invite a director only when the development was finished, as he considered effects-heavy productions too demanding for a director when working on the project from the earliest pre-production stages. He eventually brought in the Australian
George T. Miller, who was a fan of the original film. ,
Italy, the mountain where Bastian and Falkor fly following a dragon. Over 600 children were auditioned, given the original actors were now too old for their roles. In contrast to
The NeverEnding Story relying on blue screen and scale model creatures,
The Next Chapter would have more life-sized model work and matte paintings. Principal photography began in early 1990 at
Bavaria Film near
Munich. The original plan was to build three separate stages, having first and second unit shooting simultaneously on the first two-stage and have the effects done on the third. The studio decided not to build the third stage at the last minute, forcing production to shoot first and second unit on the same stage at the same time, the stage being Stage 7 at Bavaria Studios. As labour rules regarding child actors limited their working schedules, Miller decided to only rehearse scenes once before filming, and maximized the time with the children on set by shooting with as many as three cameras on every scene. This created a problem as Miller's fear of falling late wound up making the film so ahead of schedule the effects team had not completed the necessary work for later scenes. ==Soundtrack==