BBC’s ‘His Dark Materials’ Adaptation Lands Tom Hooper As Director. Logan’s Dafne Keen & Lin-Manuel Miranda To Star
A few weeks ago Bad Wolf announced ‘His Dark Materials‘ would be the next big production for the company following the completion of their adaptation of ‘A Discovery Of Witches’ for the BBC. Now it would seem they’ve not only landed a major director, but also found two large parts of the casting puzzle.
Tom Hooper, the Oscar-winning director of ‘The King’s Speech’, is set to helm the 8-part project after some lengthy negotiations according to Deadline. He is said to be extremely keen to do the adaptation, but they had to figure out fitting it around his big-screen version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s classic musical ‘Cats’, which he’s working on for Universal and Working Title.
Dafne Keen, who starred with Hugh Jackman in ‘Logan’, is set to play the lead role of Lyra, the young orphan girl who is the focal point of the book trilogy. Actor, composer and ‘Hamilton’ creator Lin-Manuel Miranda joins the series as Lee Scoresby, the “aëronaut” balloonist and adventurer who helps Lyra on her travels.
Written by Philip Pullman ‘His Dark Materials’ is one of the supreme works of imaginative fiction for both children and adults published in the twentieth century. The trilogy of novels has been published in more than 40 languages and has sold worldwide close to 17.5 million copies.
‘Northern Lights’ introduces Lyra, an orphan, who lives in a parallel universe in which science, theology and magic are entwined. Lyra’s search for a kidnapped friend uncovers a sinister plot involving stolen children and turns into a quest to understand a mysterious phenomenon called Dust. In ‘The Subtle Knife’, she is joined on her journey by Will, a boy who possesses a knife that can cut windows between worlds. As Lyra learns the truth about her parents and her prophesied destiny, the two young people are caught up in a war against celestial powers that ranges across many worlds and leads to a thrilling conclusion in ‘The Amber Spyglass’.
We’ll let you know when we hear more, but it’s nice to see ‘His Dark Materials‘ finally moving forward.
