San Diego Comic-Con means trailer upon trailer upon trailer. Already we’ve had Top Gun: Maverick and It Chapter 2, and now we’ve copped a proper look at HBO and the BBC’s new fantasy giant His Dark Materials.
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Based on Philip Pullman‘s adored trilogy, season one follows the seemingly ordinary but brave young lass Lyra, played by Dafne Keen (Logan). While searching for a kidnapped friend, Lyra stumbles upon a sinister plot involving stolen children, and sets out to understand the mysterious phenomenon called Dust.
On her quest, she meets Will, a determined and courageous boy. Together they encounter extraordinary beings like armoured polar bear Iorek Byrnison and dangerous secrets, with the fate of both the living – and the dead – in their hands.
His Dark Materials co-stars the brilliant Ruth Wilson (Luther) as Marisa Coulter, Clarke Peters (The Wire) as Dr. Carne , the one and only Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton) as Lee Scoresby, and James McAvoy (a whole bunch of films) as Lord Asriel.
Jack Throne (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) and the BBC’s executive vice-president of programming and production Jane Tranter serve as executive producers.
At the very least, it already looks heaps better than that 2007 film adaptation starring Daniel Craig as Asriel and Nicole Kidman as Marissa Coulter. Wonderful times.
His Dark Materials will premiere “this fall” on HBO, so that’s spring for us.
From CGI dragons to CGI polar bears, HBO’s rich as hell.
If you’re unfamiliar with the series or it’s just been a while, those animal companions – called daemons – are the physical manifestation of a person’s soul. Lyra’s daemon is a pine marten named Pan, Lord Asriel’s is a snow leopard. A human and their daemon are considered one being so if you hurt one, you hurt the other.
At Comic-Con, Keen described daemons as “a more sensible, responsible part of you. Lyra’s relationship with Pan shows how much Lyra loves herself; and you can see other character’s relationships with themselves through their daemon.”
