I don’t know about you but I seem to live in the world where no sooner have I finished reading a book (or series of books) which I enjoyed a lot that I discover an adaptation for it, be it for the big or the small screen is about to be released. It was true for the Lord of the Rings, Ready Player One and I suppose Harry Potter and now His Dark Materials.
Except for Robin Hobb’s books, come on HBO or whoever wants to tackle this, there is an extremely rich world of fantasy to adapt here, get on with it already!
Now I realise His Dark Materials books were released in the 90’s so if you’re one of those who read the books as a kid when they come out you’ve had much longer to wait (unless you count the Golden Compass which I will return to in a minute). But for our family we only just recently finished the last book on audio, which I do recommend as it has multiple voices and has Pullman himself narrate the story. It’s certainly plenty rich for the BBC to make something out of it, assuming their creative team is up to the task (I can’t say I’m a huge fan of anything the BBC produces except maybe Sherlock season 1, possibly 2 at a stretch). Here is the teaser:
Among the actor listed we can deduce the following roles:
- Dafne Keen as Lyra Belacqua
- Ruth Wilson as Mrs Coulter
- James McAvoy as Lord Asriel
- Clarke Peters as (possibly) John Faa (IMDB say he plays “Dr Carne” whoever that’s supposed to be)
- Lin-Manuel Miranda as (probably) Lee Scoresby
You may recognise Dafne Keen as the girl who played X23 / Laura Keeney in Logan and of course McAvoy played Professor X in 4 X-Men movies (including the yet-to-be-released Dark Phoenix). The other actors are largely unknown to me and frankly, even though I only saw the movie The Golden Compass once years ago before even reading the books, in my mind the cast of Nicole Kidman as Marissa Coulter and Sam Eliott as Lee Scoresby were perfect in that regard. The same goes for Eva Green as Serafina Pekkala but this trailer doesn’t tell you who will play her role.
And then of course you don’t see Pantalaimon or Iorek Byrnison, two characters who will determine just how good (or bad) the BBC budget is for this series that will require its fair share of CGI. Unless they have a well trained (or thirty) polar bear lying around of course.
At this point I am more curious than excited by this teaser, despite having thoroughly enjoyed the series, and if they are introducing new characters entirely (assuming you can trust IMDb, but then again I don’t recall any African (american or otherwise) characters in the first book since most of it takes place between Oxford, London and Svalbard) who knows just how much they will have to branch off the book to tell their story as a TV show.
It’s worth noting that IMDb has far more details on who will play who on their page for the series. Perhaps it’s worth listing them here as there are many names I don’t recognise (italicised in the list):
- Tyler Howitt as Billy Costa
- Ian Peck as Cardinal Sturrock
- Ruta Gedmintas as Serafina Pekkala
- Anne-Marie Duff as Ma Costa
- Nabil Elouahabi as Bright Eyed Man
- Ariyon Bakare as Lord Boreal (aka Sir Charles Latrom)
- Geoff Bell as Jack Verhoeven
- Georgina Campbell as Adele Starminster
- James Cosmo as Farder Coram
- Richard Cunningham as Gustaf
- Mat Fraser as Raymond Van Geritt
- Daniel Frogson as Tony Costa
- Philip Goldacre as Sub Rector
- Boo Golding as Seamstress
- Will Keen as Father MacPhail
- Lewin Lloyd as Roger Parslow
- Simon Manyonda as Benjamin De Ruyter
- Lucian Msamati as John Faa
- Kate Rutter as Sister Betty
- Asheq Akhtar as Jotham Santelia
- Frank Bourke as Fra Pravel
- Vivien Bridson as Fisher Woman
- Tiago Martins as Subfusc
- Pasi Antero Remsu as Samoyed Hunter
- Charlie Robinson as Bolvanger Nurse Charlotte
- Joakim Skarli as Scholar
Again no voice credit for Pantalaimon, Iorik Byrnison or any of the other daemons. The list above has many either unnamed characters or characters whose name I simply don’t recognise, which could be either my bad memory or their own expansion of the character roster. There are a few role choices I don’t agree with but for the sake or remaining PC (this is the internet after all where you get hanged for just thinking wrong) I will withhold my reservations.
There is no release date yet but knowing the BBC I wouldn’t be surprised if they were going to make it as a Christmas 2019 premiere.
Let me know your thoughts on this teaser in the comments!