His Dark Materials' trilogy, written by Philip Pullman in 1995 ( last book released in 2000), is, as many best-sellers, brought to life on the motion picture screen.

Last years, we've got The Lord of The Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Harry Potter... Next year, there will be His Dark Materials.
Contrary to The Lord of The Rings, His Dark Materials was firstly a stageplay before becoming a film.

Some of you may have heard about these books or seen the books' covers.


His Dark Materials is a quite complicated novel, in which religion, fantasy and science are mixed together. It tells the story of a world where people have got a "daemon" with them (which can be compare to a soul), a creature which can transform itself into any kind of animals. The main character is a little girl who decides to rescue one of her friends from mysterious men who kidnapp poor children to take them to North to do some experimentations.
There, Lyra ( the little girl) will discover a giant plot in which aristocrats, intellectuals commit crimes in order to do their experimentations.

His Dark Materials is a mix between mainly Harry Potter, The Lord of The Rings and The Da Vinci Code.

His Dark Material is still on shooting, but there are already some official pictures from it, especially of Nicole Kidman, who plays Mrs Coulter is a lady who will help ( but also... Go read the books !) and of Daniel Craig who plays Lord Asriel, uncle of Lyra ( and... I said Go read the books !).





Official Website
PS: Chris Weitz is the director of the film...

Be ready to hear a lot about it !

Daniel Craig also appears in the film:

I hate that when the first book was published in America they changed the name of the book from "Northern Lights" to "The Golden Compass". They apparently did it because the alethiometer on the front looked like a compass

I'm really looking forward to the movie though, let's hope they don't mess it up!

I am so excited for this movie. I don't really care for Nicole Kidman, but I think she'll be perfect as Mrs Coulter. She's pretty much exactly how I imagined the character to be when I read the books.

Hardly. It's its own, magnificient creation. The Da Vinci Code? Do me a favour, it was out yonks before that.

I was a bit uncertain about the casting initially, but I think it will work. I like the idea of Eva Green playing Serafina.

I guess, the word compass will be used in the film also, as opposed to alethiometer, which is a shame as the whole use of the object is ingrained in the word (containing the root for "truth" in ancient greek) But I am nitpicking, I love the books, so I will embrace the film.

I have already seen the National Theatre (London UK) production, which was absolutely stunning. I hope they film in Oxford and I think it will be interesting to see how the daemons are shown onscreen.. (I hope not tacky CGImages... but we shall see)

Oh my gosh. This is good news. I've always thought that trilogy would make awesome films. I'm excited!

I can't wait for these films!

When reading, I imagined Mrs Coulter as Catherine Zeta Jones, but Im sure Nicole can do evil.

oh man, this will be so good.
i love these books.

I think Nicole Kidman is a fantastic choice, although i imagined mrs coulter as dark.

This could be really great if its done right

Kidman is a lizard, or a Praying Mantis, I cannot make my mind up, either way shes naaaassssty

I remember Coulter as being blond, maybe i was thinking of Ann Coulter. Lyra looks a bit clean in that pic, but it might be during her Coulter phase. Sam Elliott as Scoresby is pretty perfect casting.

I think I did the same thing.

I must have been remembering her golden furred daemon as the book describes her as dark haired. But Pullman expressed a wish that Kidman should play Coulter, and that Samuel L. Jackson should play Scoresby.

They've taken out all the (anti) religious stuff, alarmingly.

I have never liked Nicole Kidman but I imagine she'll play this part pretty well. Definitely looking forward to it.

I really enjoyed the books, and I am looking forward to the first movie. I haven't heard this definatively, but shouldn't they be doing the movies back to back, as to avoid people dropping out of the cast/growing up too fast?

About the titling, Pullman himself explains how the US got the title Golden Compass as opposed to Northern Lights. Now, he prefers NL as a title, but as a series, Golden Compass makes more sense because then each book title is a magical object essential in that novel: Golden Compass, Subtle Knife, Amber Spyglass. If the first one was titled Northern Lights, it would defeat that idea.

As for casting... Scoresby is genius. I actually envisioned that actor when I read the book. Yes Coulter was supposed to be a brunette, but big deal, the author himself wanted Kidman (who I thought was a redhead?) and as seen in that photo, she looks perfect for the part. I just hope Lyra is believable, what a huge role to put on such a young actress. Let us hope that the movie does well, as the introduction of W_______ (spoiler) in the second movie will be great.

Sorry to bump up such an old thread, but I'm currently reading The Subtle Knife, and I just got done reading The Golden Compass and I must say the movie was a dissapointment, although I still liked it, but it could have been so much better. I really would love to see the hour that was chopped out of the movie (it was filmed! New Line fucked this movie up guys).

Read the books guys, they look childish, but nothing gets better then some good ol' fashion gawd killing

I dunno if Daniel Craig is the right man for this. I haven't seen any of his movies but I strongly believe that the portrayal of Lord Asriel requires a really in-depth understanding of the books and of Asriel's character. I just hope Daniel Craig wasn't chosen for his "bad boy" image.

desdemona I think he may have been. He isn't really in it that much to be quite honest. They cut out the ending for Christsake! They still don't know whether they'll be making The Subtle Knife or not. It flopped here in the States, but internationally did over 300 million. So in total it made about 370million dollars. It'd say that is pretty good.

BUT they sold off a good portion of international distrubution rights to cover a big part of the budget. So...who knows?! I just want a director's cut of The Golden Compass, if they make a sequel awesome, if they don't awesome, just a director's cut! PLEASE!!!