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New Line lights His Dark MaterialsFirst book of Phillip Pullman's trilogy coming to film.
New Line Cinema greenlights first book in Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. Script tones down anti-religious references.
(Source: ICv2) New Line Cinema, which made tons of money off J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, is going back to the fantasy trilogy well, this time with Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials. The studio has committed $150 million to produce Northern Lights (renamed The Golden Compass in the U.S.) the Carnegie Award-winning first book in the trilogy. If it does well at the box office, then New Line will film the other two books at the same time (the way it did with all three LotR movies). There's already been some drama in the director's chair. Chris Weitz (American Pie, About a Boy), who wrote the screenplay, left the project last year but recently returned after replacement director Anand Tucker (Shopgirl) quit. The success of Lord of the Rings and C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has made fantasy a hot commodity in Hollywood. However, some elements that helped make those films a commercial success may hurt His Dark Materials at the box office. Unlike Lewis and Tolkien, Phillip Pullman dislikes organized religion and that tone permeates His Dark Materials. One of the protagonists, Lord Asriel, goes so far as to declare war on Heaven. Scriptwriter Weitz apparently deleted references to the villainous, all-powerful church in the books, replacing it with "an arbitrary establishment." However, that is unlikely to mollify the religious groups that flocked to see the Lord of the Rings and Narnia movies. Pullman also drew fire last year when he publicly criticized the Narnia novels (which Lewis wrote in the mid-1950's), calling them "a peevish blend of racist, misogynistic and reactionary prejudice." He also criticized Lewis' use of a fictional cure for cancer in The Magician's Nephew, saying it could raise false hopes in children who were themselves, or who had friends or family members who were, seriously ill.
The copyright of the article New Line lights His Dark Materials in Animated Films is owned by Dominic von Riedemann. Permission to republish New Line lights His Dark Materials in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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