“NeverEnding Story” Childlike Empress Tami Stronach returns with first film in 40 years: Watch the trailer

“If you want to know what the '80s felt like, see this in a theater,” Stronach says of her new project “Man and Witch: The Dance of a Thousand Steps.”

Tami Stronach retired from filmmaking after her unforgettable debut movie role — the Childlike Empress in 1984's The NeverEnding Story. Now, she's back with her first movie in 40 years — Man and Witch: The Dance of a Thousand Steps.

In the first trailer for the project, which Entertainment Weekly can exclusively debut above, we see Stronach in character as the titular sorceress, lobbing difficult tasks at the film’s protagonist, the Lonely Goatherd (Greg Steinbruner, who co-wrote the film and is also Stronach’s husband). In order to overcome a curse, the Goatherd must embark on a series of quests: lifting a massive sacred object off the ground, seeking an ogre’s keep, and, eventually, performing a ridiculously complicated dance.

The film is a lighthearted fantasy adventure that harkens back to similar movies of the 1980s, like The Princess Bride, Willow, and The NeverEnding Story itself. "I think there's this nostalgia for the '80s fantasy world, so we wanted to celebrate those types of films,” Stronach told EW in 2020. “I want to see audiences rooting for the underdog again, like when they cheered for Bastian in The NeverEnding Story. One of our goals with this film is to go back to those values and then give it a twist."

The production worked with Jim Henson’s creature shop to help craft talking animal characters, some of which are voiced by Sean Astin, Jennifer Saunders, and Eddie Izzard. "We come from the theater world and the puppetry world. We don't have money for CGI, which is a limitation in one way, but in another, it's an opportunity," Stronach said in 2020.

The film was delayed considerably from its initial announcement, in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “When you embark on a quest like this, there’s no way to predict things like pandemics and strikes and a thousand other challenges we had to push through, but it all led to us releasing the film right at the 40th anniversary of The NeverEnding Story this summer,” Stronach told EW this week. “For me personally, there could not be a more perfect moment to come back. It feels exactly right.”

“We made this movie for people who need to be uplifted,” Stronach continued. “To laugh, to feel delight and joy. There is no cynicism in this film — that is what makes it so different from everything else out there, and I think the trailer captures that beautifully.  And if you want to know what the '80s felt like, see this in a theater.”

The Fathom Event screenings for Man and Witch: The Dance of a Thousand Steps will be in theaters nationwide on July 28th and 30th. Watch the first trailer above.

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