The setup is classic and intriguing: Ruth Wilson (His Dark Materials, Luther) plays a hospice nurse tending to elderly horror author Iris Blum (Paula Prentiss, The Stepford Wives), who comes to mistake her for the main character in her most famous novel—the ghost of Polly Parsons. Parsons supposedly haunts Blum’s historic Massachusetts home and once dictated her own dark tale–save for its ending–to Blum. In writer/director Osgood Perkins’s hands, this classic setup turns into a dark study of isolation and mystery, and showcases the range of Wilson’s talent as an actor. Netflix’s 2016 original production I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the Housemight make for good Halloween viewing for some fans of spooky, atmospheric, and cryptic ghost stories.
The BBC and HBO revealed a new trailer for the second season of His Dark Materials. Dafne Keen is back as Lyra Belacqua, with Ruth Wilson as the vile Mrs. Coulter and Lin-Manuel Miranda as the friend to polar bears everywhere, Lee Scoresby. The Great War is brewing as Lyra and Will (Amir Wilson) begin to explore their new worlds. With season one roughly following the events of the novel The Golden Compass aka Northern Lights, the characters are now aligned to reveal the secrets of The Subtle Knife. Mrs. Coulter has a new wardrobe and style, everything is getting a bit bleaker, and we at last get to see more of those steampunk dirigibles in action.
For me the challenge and threshold for success for HBO’s series His Dark Materials was huge. The first adaptation of Philip Pullman’s wildly successful series of novels was the 2007 big-screen film The Golden Compass, which rated #1 on my all-time favorite fantasy movie list here at borg back in 2012. Late last year HBO took on its own adaptation, and the first season arrived, but fell in the shadow of more popular, and more marketed series last year like The Mandalorian. So on the one hand we have a big-budget movie with an all-star cast–so how does the TV series fare by comparison? At last His Dark Materialsjust arrived on Blu-Ray and DVD and the studio sent us a copy for review (you can order it here at Amazon), so check out my review below, along with a preview of Season 2.
Last year at San Diego Comic-Con we got our first look at season one of His Dark Materials, BBC and HBO’s adaptation of Philip Pullman’s popular fantasy novels, so it’s no surprise the second season trailer premiered at this year’s Comic-Con@Home. Logan star Dafne Keen returns as Lyra to lead a cast including Ruth Wilson, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ariyon Bakare, Andrew Scott, Amir Wilson, and newcomers to the series this season, Terence Stamp, Jade Anouka, and Simone Kirby.
The BBC and HBO brought a new trailer to San Diego Comic-Con Thursday for the new series His Dark Materials. Logan star Dafne Keen is back in a leading role as Lyra Belacqua, with Ruth Wilson as the vile Mrs. Coulter, James McAvoy as the grand Lord Asriel, and Lin-Manuel Miranda as the friend to polar bears everywhere, Lee Scoresby.
If it all looks familiar it’s because the first part of the series traces the steps of the Philip Pullman novel Northern Lights aka The Golden Compass, already translated into the movie The Golden Compass, a big-budget, special effects filled spectacle in 2007 starring Dakota Blue Richards, Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Sam Elliott, and Christopher Lee, and an equally impressive voice cast. The film was as big as fantasy movies get, with a budget to support an all-star cast, so it will be a challenge to create an episodic version as spellbinding and audience-grabbing on a TV studio budget.
Yet for television fantasy it looks great so far–Dafne Keen showed in Logan she can create one of the greatest superheroine performances of all time even at her young age, and for fans of the original film and the novels the trailer may just get them to finally check out an HBO subscription. Last week novelist Philip Pullman commented on Twitter: “Today I wore a jacket I hadn’t worn for two years. In the pocket I found my green leather pen case containing the pen that wrote His Dark Materials… I knew it would come back to me.” Coincidence? We doubt it.
Complete with a new alethiometer, check out this great trailer for the BBC-produced HBO series, His Dark Materials:
Dafne Keen tops the list of best child actors in movies, and her performance as X-23 along with co-stars Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart made Logan–and specifically the black and white version released as Logan Noir–my pick for the #1 best superhero movie of all time. So it’s a big deal that Keen has been tapped in the lead role of Lyra Belacqua, the young protagonist of a new adaptation of Philip Pullman′s His Dark Materials–a Carnegie Medal-winning trilogy of novels and a favorite among a generation of readers, selling 18 million copies and translated into 40 languages. It’s doubly exciting for a fan like me, as the story and character of Lyra was adapted to the big screen once already, in 2007, as the Oscar-winningThe Golden Compass, my pick back in 2012 here at borg at the top position of my ten favorite fantasy films of all time (check out that and our staff writers’ lists from back then here if you missed it). Keen is the perfecting casting decision for one of fantasy’s best-developed, and most fascinating supernatural worlds.
Coming from the BBC and to be released via HBO in the States, His Dark Materialswill feature eight episodes the first season. Take a look at the first trailers below. Along with Keen as Lyra (who was played by Dakota Blue Richards in the film), the series stars X-Men and Glass’sJames McAvoy as Lord Asrael (played by Daniel Craig in the film), Lin-Manuel Miranda as Lee Scoresby (Sam Elliott in the film), John Wick and Jessica Jones’Clarke Peters as Dr. Carne (Jack Shepherd in the film), The Strain and The Borgias’Ruta Gedmintas as Serafina (Eva Green in the film), Shetland and Outlaw King’sJames Cosmo as Farder Coram (Tom Courtenay in the film) and Luther, The Prisoner, and Jane Eyre’sRuth Wilson as Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman in the film). No voice cast has been announced for the several animal characters. The series is directed by Oscar-winning director Tom Hooper. Production for season one wrapped in late 2018 and a second season has already been green-lighted.
