By BBC clearly has high hopes for their adaptation of the His Dark Materials trilogy as word has come in that despite the first season still being in production, and the premiere date not even announced, they’ve greenlit the second season. BBC One already netted a bunch of big stars like Lin-Manuel Miranda, Dafne Keen, and James McAvoy, and pulled in Tom Hooper to produce and direct the first to episodes, so it makes sense they’re all aboard with this despite the fact no one has reacted to it.
New Line and Bad Wolf have ordered another eight episodes. It’s unclear how the show will be broken up, but one could assume that the first eight will cover the story of The Golden Compass (ie The Northern Lights) and the second would then jump into The Subtle Knife. However it plays out, BBC is reportedly spending more money on this show than any other in history.
This is really exciting for me as I love these books. They’re some of my favorite YA novels around as they confront a lot of major issues in very relatable ways while taking place in an utterly unique multi-verse, but… New Line Cinemas though that with The Golden Compass as well and that did not pull in the audience it needed to. I think TV will give the show a much better life, though. The world has a lot to unpack that a movie just wasn’t going to achieve. New Line, who is producing the show, must still see something there as well.
BBC Doubles Order Of Philip Pullman Fantasy Adaptation ‘His Dark Materials’ [Deadline]
