HBO unveiled the release date (November 4th!) for its upcoming fantasy series His Dark Materials earlier this week, and today, Entertainment Weekly has some additional details about the upcoming adaptation of Philip Pullman’s classic series.
For those unfamiliar: the series is set in an alternate Earth where peoples’ souls manifest as shape-shifting animals (known as “daemons”). The first novel, The Golden Compass, followed a young girl named Lyra, who began searching for a kidnapped friend, and stumbled into a horrific plot hatched by her world’s domineering Church. Last September, HBO and BBC studios announced that they had renewed the series for a second season.
EW‘s article takes a closer look at the upcoming first season, and provides some new details about what to expect. Here’s what we learned from it:
- The series will move quickly. Each episode takes place in a different location, following Lyra from Oxford to the Arctic Circle.
- The cast and crew of the series are big fans of the books. Lin-Manuel Miranda (Lee Scoresby) described shooting the series as a “vacation,” while James McAvoy (Lord Asriel) says that he loved the books and was “more protective over Asriel than any other role.”
- Ruth Wilson sought to bring something new to her antagonist, Mrs. Coulter. Wilson apparently hadn’t read the books, but wanted to “create something new,” and notes that “You’re always confused by what her motives are and who she really is.” That might explain some of the other changes to the character — who appears to have brown hair in the series, as opposed to being a blonde in the books.
- Each season will tackle a new book. Up until now, HBO and the BBC haven’t explained how the series will progress, but EW says that the first season will cover the events of The Golden Compass (which we knew from the trailers) and Season 2 will cover the events of The Subtle Knife. The plan is that a third season will cover the events of the final novel, The Amber Spyglass.
- The series might depart a bit from the books. EW notes that “the serialized format also grants leeway to expand on Pullman’s saga,” due in part to Lyra actress Dafne Keen, who could only work a certain number of hours each day. “Producers have found other threads to follow.”
- The series might also include bits of The Book of Dust. In 2017, Pullman released his long-awaited followup to His Dark Materials, The Book of Dust, a new trilogy set before and after the series. According to McAvoy, the first season “might have a little bit, like a minute of extra material, that comes from The Book of Dust, but that’s about it.”
- Season 2 has already begun production, and has cast Andrew Scott as Colonel John Parry / Doctor Stanislaus Grumman from The Subtle Knife. He’s the father of Will Parry, who accidentally traveled to Lyra’s world, where he became a famous scientist.
- Don’t expect Game of Thrones-levels of sex and violence. “I can say that I am very, very, very glad I’m making His Dark Materials and not an adult, X-rated, male-orientated piece of fantasy,” says Jane Tranter, the BBC executive overseeing the series.
I’m really looking forward to this . It looks great. I’ve never read the Book of Dust any thoughts?
I liked the writing in Book of Dust, but ended up abandoning it early on. It was slow going and slow to start the plot. There are mysterious goings on and mysterious players (see, repetitive) that/who are hard to track.
Maybe I’ll give it another shot later or maybe just skip to volume two.
Mrs. Coulter had black hair in the books, not blonde. I think you’re confusing it with Nicole Kidman being blonde in the awful movie adaptation. From her first appearance in The Golden Compass, very last page of Ch 3, “Her sleek black hair framed her cheeks.”
Her monkey has blonde hair :)
That’s not a euphemism, ha.
I have to admit, I’m always a little nervous when somebody who hasn’t read the books then talks about how they want to bring something new to the character, but I guess it’s part of the typical tension between an artist wanting to do their own thing vs being beholden to an existing work. Adaptations always differ, so I suppose time will tell if it’s a good departure or not!
@@.-@. Lisamarie: “Any adaptation is a translation, and there is such a thing as an unreadably faithful translation; and I believe a degree of reinterpretation for the new language may be not only inevitable but desirable.” -David Mitchell
@1 Book of Dust is good, but not grand in scope as was the original trilogy. In a sense the relationship is similar to the Hobbit/LoTR dynamic.
@@@@@ 4: “I have to admit, I’m always a little nervous when somebody who hasn’t read the books then talks about how they want to bring something new to the character”
Never listen to actors. So few of them have really anything to say.
Blonde or not –and yes, Book Mrs. Coulter is definitely a brunette– Nicole Kidman will always be the definitive Mrs. Coulter for me. As she was for Philip Pullman. It’s one of the few things one can really salvage from that wretch of an anadaptation.
Ruth Wilson is a fine actor, and I’m pretty sure I’ll enjoy whatever she has to bring to the table, but she lacks the physique du role for Mrs. Coulter.
As for the Book of Dust, alas, I won’t read it until the last book is out. I have a bad case of GRRM Burnout. His Dark Materials remains one of my favorite book series of all time, fantasy or not.
@8. Ash: “Ruth Wilson is a fine actor… but she lacks the physique du role for Mrs. Coulter.”
Depends on what you mean by that. She was plenty scary in the Luther series, especially the first one.
@@@@@ 9: The first thing we know about Mrs. Coulter is that she’s a great beauty. It is one of her “superpowers.” She is the kind of person who turns everyone’s heads when she walks into a room. She is the ultimate femme fatale, and sort of hides behind her beauty, and she uses it to get what she wants. She can seduce a frigging archangel. Nicole Kidman embodies that, which is why she was Philip Pullman’s dream Mrs. Coulter.
It’s when they made Bette Davis play a great beauty in Mrs. Skeffington. She states in her autobiography (I forget which of the two) that she gave it her best, and that lighting, makeup and costume also gave it their best, but she was wrong for the part. As is Ruth Wilson, IMHO.
I appreciate bringing a new twist, but come on, this is Mrs. Coulter. Can you imagine if Ian McKellan said he had not read Lord of the Rings so he could “create something new” in portraying Gandalf? The entire culture around science fiction/fantasy would have risen up.
@10. Ash: when you put it like that… ouch.
@@@@@ 12: I don’t mean it as a slight. It’s not like she’s Quasimodo. She is a reasonably attractive woman, and a fine actor.
But it’s like casting a young Ian McKellen as Thor, or Maisie Williams as Brienne of Tarth. Or Gerard Butler as the Phantom of the Opera (that one was, unfortunately, real).
E.T.A. I keep misspelling McKellen’s name. (Starting with McClellan!)
E.T.A.A. That said, I’m willing to be proven wrong. I was against the casting of Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn, and of Gwendoline Christie as Brienne of Tarth, because they were too pretty for those roles. They eventually won me over.
@Ash: if Viggo was too pretty, then Stuart Townsend would’ve definitely rubbed you the wrong way.
@@@@@ 14: STUART TOWNSEND??????!!!!!!! THEY WERE GOING TO LET STUART TOWNSEND PLAY ARAGORN????????????????!!!!!!!! *dead faint*
A bit OT, but Dafne Keen looks uncannily like Lukas Haas in that picture.
On the question of Mrs Coulter’s hair colour:
She was originally dark haired but after casting Nicole Kidman in the movie Pullman said he regretted not making her blonde, and I think I read somewhere that this was retconned in some later printings of the books:
https://web.archive.org/web/20080305011900/http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/node/697
@@@@@ 17: Ha! I hadn’t read that interview.
I remember another interview, back when the movie was still a project, where he said that Kidman was his dream actor for the role. (That was even before she was attached to the project.) And Kidman was indeed perfection.
I also seem to remember (perhaps less accurately) him saying that he wasn’t going to be involved in the movies; that he just “took the movie and run,” or something in that vein. I might be wrong, though. (Believe it or not, I have been wrong on occasion.)
That movie had the dream cast to end all dream casts, and visuals to match it. It’s a pity it went so wrong, in so many ways.
@Ashgrove: I always thought the criticism to the movie was overblown, similarly to how bad (faith) criticism was thrown at John Carter. I liked the movie. Perhaps the only failure of nerve was not ending on Asriel’s sacrifice of Lyra’s friend. That would’ve had them talking and perhaps wanting the next installment.
@@@@@ 19: The story was squeezed and rushed, and the whole toning down the criticism to religion and church did not make it any better. But it was visually stunning, and I like better that cast than this one, and this cast is REALLY good. But that cast was the stuff of LEGENDS.
As for John Carter, I have never understood the hate. I LOVE that movie –and I’m a lover of the books from waaaaay back. And Taylor Kitsch is pitch perfect in it.