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Time to get excited: BBC One is to adapt Philip Pullman's epic fantasy trilogy of novels His Dark Materials into a new series. The ambitious project will be produced by Bad Wolf and New Line Cinema, and will be filmed in Wales. Broadcast dates have yet to be announced.

 

His Dark Materials consists of Northern Lights (1995, The Golden Compass in America), The Subtle Knife (1997) and The Amber Spyglass (2000). The series follows two children, Lyra Belacqua and Will Parry, as they travel through various parallel universes and meet a host of fantastical creatures including witches and armoured polar bears. It has drawn criticism for its negative portrayal of Christianity and other religions.

 

Pullman said: "It's been a constant source of pleasure to me to see this story adapted to different forms and presented in different media. It's been a radio play, a stage play, a film, an audiobook, a graphic novel - and now comes this version for television. "In recent years we've seen how long stories on television, whether adaptations (Game of Thrones) or original (The Sopranos, The Wire), can reach depths of characterisation and heights of suspense by taking the time for events to make their proper impact and for consequences to unravel.

 

"And the sheer talent now working in the world of long-form television is formidable. For all those reasons I'm delighted at the prospect of a television version of His Dark Materials. I'm especially pleased at the involvement of Jane Tranter, whose experience, imagination and drive are second to none. As for the BBC, it has no stronger supporter than me. I couldn't be more pleased with this news."

 

Nicholas Hytner previously made a stage production of His Dark Materials for the National Theatre in 2003 to 2004. Two years later, a film adaptation of the first book titled The Golden Compass starred Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig and Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra. Sequels made from the second and third books in the series were shelved due to the disappointing financial performance of the film and the worldwide recession following the banking crisis.

 

Are/were you a fan of the books and so are you excited for this new BBC TV series? How did you like the film, 'The Golden Compass' and do you wish they'd made the full trilogy or do you think it will work better on television?

YES! I was always annoyed the film series didn't finish, even though the first wasn't great. I love the books.

The film wasn't bad and it would have been nice for them to make the other two. But, with child actors you have to act fast and it would have made more sense to make all three back to back a la Peter Jackson - guess the money wasn't there to do that.

 

A long TV series is what is needed - Six 60 minute episodes per book would be nice. The question is when to show it? The Dr Who slot would make sense rather than 9pm on a Sunday (which hampered the viewing figures of the excellent Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell) or they could break from the current weird "prime-time" setup and stick it on a weekday at 8pm.

This seems to be taking some time! :lol:

 

Earlier this year though there were some cast announcements: Dafne Keen (Logan) as Lyra Belacqua, Ruth Wilson (Luther) as Marisa Coulter, James McAvoy as Lord Asriel, Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton) as Lee Scoresby and Clarke Peters (The Wire) as the Master of Jordan College.

I'm not surprised it's taking a while. It sounds like it's going to be an expensive event drama, so hopefully they'll be taking their time to make sure it's well done!

 

It looks so good *.*

I am really looking forwards to this. I love the books (the second and third one are fantastic, the first takes some getting into). Was really annoyed they didn't do the follow up films as I quite liked The Golden Compass don't get why it didn't do well at the box office? Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig were great casting, such a shame it never got completed.

Very excited by the prospect of this adaptation. Completely in love with the books. The first was actually my favourite.

 

I think the film did a fair job too. Visually, it was superb. And the soundtrack was incredible.

 

But if I remember correctly, the film downplayed the religious theme, opting for a political analogy. Hopefully the BBC will be more faithful to the books in that respect.

Oh. My. God.

 

Please do the books justice, they were among my favourite ever novels.

I've purchased the trilogy recently and want to read them all before this airs, almost finished Northern Lights and it's great! Think it's got great potential for the screen so hopefully this does it justice, the trailer and cast look great. Problem with the Golden Compass was it was just super forgettable when really it should've been more distinctive given the source material.

 

(also, I want a dæmon :'()

Official trailer out!

 

 

Gosh, this looks so good, please don't let me down. A glimpse of Iorek Byrnison as well *.* (I have indeed finished the books since I posted that above and they were pretty epic, certainly a lot of scope for a great production).

Oh my goodness this looks incredible *.*

Its coming... OMG... I saw the trailer after Killing Eve, it looks pretty awesome. The books are fantastic to read as well.

Starts November 3rd!

omg i cant believe i started this thread 4 years ago

Really looking forwards to this, not long to go now!

Ps James McAvoy is brilliant in EVERYTHING so really pleased he is in it!

Not read the books and only saw the film once YEARS ago so not really familiar with the story and still getting into the whole world but still what a fabulous first episode. It rightly took its time in setting up the whole world whilst teasing where it’s all going. Such famtastic production and it’s the type of family drama that TV has been yearning for!

Yeah, pretty good stuff! Lyra and Ms. Coulter are PERFECTLY cast just from the first episode, and the daemons look lovely. They're being very faithful so far which is good certainly established the world very well and the Magisterium looks good (according to reviews, which seemed to indicate 'good but not great' from the what I gathered, the religious aspect has been watered down a bit like the film, but I still hope they have a bit more balls with it, as it was one of the main aspects of the book).

Just settling down to watch episode two of this... enjoyed the first episode but it bothered me a little bit that hardly anyone actually had a daemon!