HIS DARK MATERIALS is coming back to the screen thanks to BBC!
After a rocky first attempt at a screen adaptation, Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials will get a fresh start over at BBC.
The popular book series consisting of The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass follows young Lyra Belacqua as she goes on a grand adventure to save stolen children from cruel experiments using a mysterious new element simply referred to as “Dust”. Of course, Lyra discovers much more than she bargained for and suddenly, she finds herself a key player in a war of epic portions!
For his part, author Philip Pullman is thrilled to see His Dark Materials headed back to the screen:
“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 the way that 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.”
Bad Wolf and New Line Cinema will produce the series, despite New Line’s cagey history with the series: The company also headed up the 2007 movie The Golden Compass, infamously forcing the film to be restructured to avoid religious controversy, thus taking away much of the story’s thematic elements in the process.
The series will be filmed in Wales. BBC has not released casting details nor a prospective release date.
