Tami Stronach, who famously played the Childlike Empress in 1984 fantasy feature The NeverEnding Story, is to star in and executive produce a new children’s fantasy film.
Man & Witch, written by Stronach’s husband, Greg Steinbruner, will be directed by Rob Margolies (She Wants Me), with fellow 1980s child star Sean Astin (The Goonies, The Lord of the Rings) and Emmy winners Rhea Perlman (Cheers), Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future) and Michael Emerson (Lost) also joining the cast.
The film is described by the producers as a “heartwarming homage to the lo-fi fantasy films of the ’80s” and a “comic adventure that both fulfills and subverts the expectations of what a fantasy universe can be.” Stronach will play a reclusive yet powerful and mysterious witch who loses her heart to a hapless goatherd when he hires her to break a curse by an evil wizard.
Aiding the lo-fi 1980s theme, The Jim Henson Creature Shop has been hired to create the puppets for Man & Witch‘s comic roles of the talking sheep, goose and dog, which will be portrayed by a mixture of real animals and puppets. Choreography will come from Chase Brock.
Further casting is to be announced, with production expected to begin in the late fall in the New York tri-state area.
