His Dark Materials Trilogy

i have doubts, moneys money. it has to be something more, i think its simply that they know they got that box office result from the early box office. people thought they were in for a harry potter or narnia. those disappointed might be far less likely to take a chance on a sequel. once bitten twice shy
 
The only religion this series fell to was capitalism :p
The film was a huge flop financially and that's why no sequel will be made (similar to Eragon).
 
I saw Pullman interviewed and he said he thought the other books would never be made into films as the first movie flopped so badly.

I've read the books. The first two are grand but I struggled to finish the last one. I couldn't stay interested in it.

The movie was alright. Nowt special.
 
No, I'm not giving them credit for it. They are claiming credit for it. Again, I didn't say that they have the power to get films cancelled, I said that if Catholics believe they have the power to censor Hollywood that is a bad thing. These are influential people like TV pundit Bill O'Reilly who attacked the trilogy on the emotive grounRAB that it was a "war on Christmas".

Whether Catholic pressure really did play any part in getting the trilogy canned is almost irrelevant: it's the fact that people like O'Reilly believe they have the right to get it canned that's worrying.
 
Chris Weitz, who directed and co-wrote The Golden Compass, had a lot of pressure put on him halfway through production (or after a rough cut was done) by the studio and loaRAB of crazy changes were made from that point on, including cutting the last 15 minutes or so completely.

As soon as I knew they were cutting the ending I knew it was going to be crap, and lo and behold it was. This meant that Daniel Craig's role as Lord Asriel was severely reduced and the whole movie made no sense because it was building to...well...nothing. They restructured where the battles were in the movie, made confusing edits, cut stuff that was going to 'offend' the church etc.

The Catholic Church does have a lot of power. More than people might realise. Church pressure on the studio, studio pressure on the director, it was never going to work out. Hopefully we will one day see the proper cut of the movie with the ending intact.
 
Although I'd love to see the above happen, I actually think it's quite hard to adapt.

The main reason for this is that, although the books are read by teenagers, they're probably aimed at people about 16 and over. But the main protagonist is a 12 year old girl. It's going to be very difficult to get adults to emphasise with a charcter who is so young. Although I'll admit that they've managed to do so with Harry Potter, but the subject matter isn't half as dark.
 
I was exactly the opposite, the first one took me a while, the second a few days, and the third in 24 hours (to and from Bristol, from Norwich, on the train and a night in the hotel in between!).

I finally got round to watching the film last night and it wasn't as bad as I was expecting.

I don't remember the first book putting the general message of the trilogy across that heavily anyway, so I thought the Magisterium's role in the film was about right, the girl playing Lyra was just perfect, Nicole Kidman was perfectly good as Mrs Coulter, and the Gyptians were well realised, particularly their fenland accents (I'm familiar with all forms of the Norfolk dialect and while they weren't perfect, they were better than most you see on TV/Film which just end up being West Country).

The most criminal thing is the ending, but I can even see the reasoning behind cutting it.

The end of Northern Lights is more like the ending of the middle part of a trilogy, leaving you on a really bleak note (ala Empire Strikes Back for instance), so I can understand why the studio didn't want it there, that's not to say it was the RIGHT call of course, but there is still the option of starting a second film at Asriel's lab/prison and going from there.

It's been nearly a year since I read it, so I'm sure there are some more glaring ommissions in the film that were noticed by purists, but if you're THAT into a series of books that you know every minute detail I think you should should stay away from the cinema when they make it to film, it'll never be perfect.
 
Loved the books, thought the film was one of the worst things i'd ever seen. Therefore, in their current guise, I'm glad they didn't make any more.
 
I had the pleasure of attending a 2 night play of His Dark Materials earlier this year. The story was difficult to follow and it was only after a recap presented at the start of the second night that I really understood the plot.
 
I've never read the books only seen the film which IMO isn't ha;f as bad as it's made out to be.

At one time these books were given the label unfilmable because of the various complexities. I don't think they should try and make them because they are onto a hiding to nothing. Unless each book was made into two films and running 3-4 hours long stuff will have to be cut. Even if it were chances are stuff would still get cut.
The minute that happens the film gets written off as being crap because this bit is missing or that bit was altered, perhaps this bit wasn't in the book.

Whenever you take something that is popular and turn it into a film it always gets slated. In an interview to promote the first Harry Potter film, Director/producer said he was determined to get as much as possible into the film because the fans of the book will be disappointed and angry if a bit they like or that they feel "should" be in the film isn't. When Hugh Jackman was announced playing Wolverine out came the complainers, he is wrong for the part blah blah blah. The poor sod hasn't even read the final script yet and he's getting laid into.

Let's say the films do get made. How likely is it the fanRAB of the books will say ok if an 15 year old gets cast as Lycra because..

1) The Producer and Director think they want to use them.
2) Owing to employment laws using minors they can shoot more scenes per day and keep the costs down?

I'm guessing not many. She is 12 (or whatever) in the book so she should be 11-13 moan moan moan. Lots of people hated the fact in the Narnia, Prince Caspian in the book he is about 14/15 and in the film at least 20 maybe older.
Realistically casting an 11-13 year old would be a stupid thing to do. Over the course of the books, how much does Lyra age? Is it set over a few weeks, months years?
If it's a year how in the hell are they going to keep the child actress looking 12 when the filiming of the films lasts 3-4 years? If they recast then it will be she isn't as good as her.

The only possible way you could do the trilogy is as an animation and even then stuff would still get cut, changed or altered so why bother?

Maybe these books should be left with that label of being "unfilmable."
 
According to Wikipedia (the best source I could find) it had a budget of between $180m and $205m.

However, the main issue was that only $70m of it's $370m revenue came from domestic (i.e. US) receipts. For a sequel to be green-lit, it would have to have performed much better in the US.

I think there might also be an issue with different distributors in the US and abroad, but I'm not entirely sure.
 
That's complete madness if they really did change the 3rd book. The whole point is that Lyra becomes a sexually awakened Eve-like figure at the end, even if it's all mostly implied.

It's a shame it didn't get made into a huge TV series as opposed to films.
 
I read the first book especially to see the film, and I was majorly let down when I saw it. I didn't finish the series of books though. I don't think they're making any more films because of how bad the first was. The lead actress was terrible. I refuse to believe that she was the best girl to turn up at the auditions. :mad:
 
The film was awful! I was so disappointed, it just didn't seem to have a proper plot at all!

I have read and re-read the books though and love them! I think they're the best book series in terms of fantasy literature for adolescents and kiRAB, and great for adults too.
 
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