Pullman Nerds Unite: The ‘His Dark Materials’ Adaptation Teaser Just Dropped
Starring a veritable shedload of your favourite character actors.
That bespectacled ponce Harry Potter can fuck right off: OG fantasy nerds know that Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials books are some of the most challenging, exciting novels ever written for the young adult market.
After all, over the space of three weighty tomes — Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass — Pullman set out to explore nothing less than the nature of the human soul, pissing off the archaic and out-of-touch Catholic church in the process. Your fave could never.
RUTH WILSON AS MARISA COULTER SIGN ME THE FUCK UP #HisDarkMaterials pic.twitter.com/BG8ZJ9dpHO
— noemi (@wildfiresqueen) February 24, 2019
But, perhaps thanks in no small part to the sheer ambition of the trilogy, the His Dark Materials series has had a history of being impossible to transition to the screen. Big-budget film adaptations were set up and then dismantled from the early thousands onwards, culminating in the highly disappointing — both critically and commercially — The Golden Compass movie, which committed the gravest sin of them all: wasting Nicole Kidman.
Now, finally, those ol’ mates at the BBC have rolled up their sleeves, and set out to do Pullman’s novels justice: a massive, multi-season adaptation of the entire trilogy is in the works, with the first season hitting our screens this very year.
The first teaser doesn’t give away a whole lot — it’s mostly comprised of people running, and dusty British character actors looking concerned while wearing bespoke furs — but the cast alone should be cause for excitement. James McAvoy is taking on the role of the broody Lord Asriel, Ruth Wilson of Luther fame is the ice-cold Mrs. Coulter, and Lin-Manuel Miranda himself is taking on the role of charming aeronaut Lee Scoresby. Oh, and the young heroine Lyra will be played by Dafne Keen, best known as the gruff, silent mini-Wolverine in Logan.
The whole thing has been directed by Tom Hooper — he’s best known as the brains behind the so-so but strangely successful Les Misérables adaptation, not to mention the forthcoming big screen adaptation of the musical Cats — and written by Jack Thorne, the playwright and screenwriter responsible for the smash hit Harry Potter And The Cursed Child.
No release date has been announced yet — the teaser only promises that the series is dropping “soon” — so try not to get too excited.