The Neverending Story owes a good lot of its plotline to the Ibsen play Peer Gynt, especially in the second part of the novel.
I'm not entirely sure that's the case, and even if it is, I don't think that makes it an example of the trope. It's not like Michael Ende was thinking "That 110-year-old play is a bestseller; I wonder if I could cash in on that?"
I pulled this:
I'm not entirely sure that's the case, and even if it is, I don't think that makes it an example of the trope. It's not like Michael Ende was thinking "That 110-year-old play is a bestseller; I wonder if I could cash in on that?"