Neverwas


Neverwas is a 2005 Canadian-American fantasy drama film, written and directed by Joshua Michael Stern in his directorial debut. It stars Ian McKellen, Aaron Eckhart, Brittany Murphy, Nick Nolte, William Hurt, and Jessica Lange. It was first shown at the 2005 [Toronto International Film Festival]. However, the film was never given a full theatrical release, eventually being released straight to DVD in 2007.

Plot

Zach Riley is a psychiatrist who leaves a job at a prestigious university to take up a position at the privately run mental institution, Millwood, belonging to Dr. Reed. What he doesn't reveal at the time of his appointment is that this was the very place where his novelist father, T.L. Pierson, spent many years of his life as he battled chronic depression. T.L. later wrote a popular children's classic, Neverwas, about a child who enters a secret world to free a captive king. T.L. later committed suicide; Riley, who found the body, has always partly blamed himself for his father's death.
Riley is assigned to work with a schizophrenic patient, Gabriel Finch, and soon realizes that Finch sees himself as the captive king. As he listens to Finch and resumes his acquaintance with childhood friend Maggie Paige, he realizes that more things link him to the book – and also to Finch's recovery – than he ever thought. T.L.'s novel was based on Finch's stories, told to him by Finch while both were patients in the hospital. Finch believes that the book is a sort of oracle confirming his personal reality, and that Riley is the boy hero. Riley comes to see himself this way in a sense, as he discovers that Finch's "hallucination" concerns actual places and events.

Cast

Development

The film was written and directed by filmmaker Joshua Michael Stern in his directorial debut. It was produced by Sidney Kimmel and Greg Shapiro, and co-produced by Aaron Eckhart who starred in the leading role. The film was distributed by Neverwas Productions and premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 9, 2005. It was initially distributed by Miramax Home Entertainment for its home media release. Owing to the theme of a fairy tale which is based on real events, the film has often been compared with Finding Neverland, which Miramax were also involved with.

Filming

took place in September 2004 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Home media

The film's U.S. DVD from Miramax Home Entertainment was released on July 3, 2007.
In December 2010, Miramax was sold by The Walt Disney Company, their owners since 1993. That same month, the studio was taken over by private equity firm Filmyard Holdings. Filmyard licensed the home media rights for several Miramax titles to Echo Bridge Entertainment, and on February 14, 2012, Echo Bridge reissued Neverwas on DVD. It was one of the more recent Miramax films to be reissued by Echo Bridge, as the initial home video release had only occurred four year prior. In 2011, Filmyard Holdings licensed the Miramax library to streamer Netflix. This deal included Neverwas, and ran for five years, eventually ending on June 1, 2016.
Filmyard Holdings sold Miramax to Qatari company beIN Media Group during March 2016. In April 2020, ViacomCBS acquired the rights to Miramax's library, after buying a 49% stake in the studio from beIN. Neverwas was one of the 700 titles they acquired in the deal, and since April 2020, the film has been distributed by Paramount Pictures. On March 4, 2021, Neverwas was made available on Paramount's new streaming service Paramount+, as one of its inaugural launch titles.