'His Dark Materials' bosses confirm the new series will be just as dark as the books
Worried that the new adaptation of His Dark Materials might end up making the same mistakes as those of the infamous Golden Compass movie?
Well, you shouldn't be. Or at least, the show's bosses don't want you to be.
During a Q&A that took place after the world premiere of the new show's first episode on Tuesday, executive producer Jane Tranter and writer Jack Thorne — yep, the same guy who wrote Harry Potter and the Cursed Child — were keen to put people's minds at ease.
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"We plan to adapt the books as the books were written," said Tranter, in response to an audience question that referenced The Golden Compass being a little toothless in some of its discourse.
"The actions that happen in the books will be the actions that happen in the adaptation. No one took the books on not understanding where Season 2 and Season 3 were going, and we will adapt those. This is one of the beauties of working for the BBC and HBO: no one is fearful. In fact everyone is engaged and embracing of the journey the books will go on."
"We plan to adapt the books as the books were written."
His Dark Materials will take place over at least three seasons, with each season focussing on a book in Philip Pullman's trilogy. The first season, which is based on The Northern Lights, will be spread over eight episodes – and the showrunners' desire to stick close to the source material was made clear.
They've clearly put a lot of work in, too — writer Jack Throne revealed at one point that the script for the first episode alone went through 46 drafts.
"These books are monstrously good," he said. "When you're given an adaption there's sort of two forms of adaption: There's the ones where you go, 'Ah, there's a seed of something brilliant here that I can sort of play with and make work. And then there's other ones where you go, 'My job is just to get this as close to this as possible on the screen because the book is perfect.
"And I do think the books are perfect."
His Dark Materials premieres on the BBC on 3 Nov. in the U.K., and on 4 Nov. on HBO in the U.S.
