‘His Dark Materials’ Headed To BBC One; New Line Producing Epic Fantasy Series

BBC One has ordered the ambitious adaptation of Philip Pullman’s epic trilogy of fantasy novels, His Dark Materials. In its first foray into television, New Line Cinema is producing with LA- and South Wales-based Bad Wolf, a new U.S./UK outfit founded by Jane Tranter and Julie Gardner.

Since the first book, 1995’s Northern Lights, His Dark Materials has been published in more than 40 languages and has sold nearly 17.5M copies worldwide. Northern Lights introduces Lyra, an orphan, who lives in a parallel universe in which science, theology and magic are entwined. Her search for a kidnapped friend uncovers a sinister plot involving stolen children and turns into a quest to understand a mysterious phenomenon called Dust. In the second book, The Subtle Knife, she is joined on her journey by Will, a boy who possesses a knife that can cut windows between worlds. As Lyra learns the truth about her parents and her prophesied destiny, the two young people are caught up in a war against celestial powers that ranges across many worlds and leads to a thrilling conclusion in The Amber Spyglass.

The series will be made in Wales for BBC One and executive roduced by Pullman, Tranter and Gardner for Bad Wolf; Toby Emmerich and Carolyn Blackwood for New Line; Bethan Jones for BBC One and Deborah Forte for Scholastic. There’s no word yet on timing.

New Line previously produced The Golden Compass, a feature based on Northern Lights that starred Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig and Dakota Blue Richards. Critical reception was tepid but box office was solid at over $370M worldwide. In 2003-4, Nicholas Hytner’s stage production of His Dark Materials ran at London’s National Theatre.

Pullman says, “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 characterization 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.”

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