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New Line Cinema And Scholastic Entertainment To Bring The "His Dark Materials" Trilogy To The Screen

New Line Cinema and Scholastic Entertainment to Enter Alternate Universe with Philip Pullman's Award-Winning His Dark Materials Trilogy

LOS ANGELES (Feb. 11, 2002) – New Line Cinema and Scholastic Entertainment have joined forces to bring Philip Pullman's Whitbread Award-winning His Dark Materials trilogy to the screen, it was announced today by Toby Emmerich, New Line Cinema's president of production and Deborah Forte, producer of the project and executive vice president of Scholastic Entertainment.

In the epic trilogy, comprised of the books The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, Pullman unlocks the door to a parallel world where strange creatures live side by side with humans, and humans share souls with animals. The books center on precocious young protagonists whose adventures lead them into battle against the ultimate evil with the fate of the universe in their hands. Pullman is the first children's author to ever win the UK's prestigious Whitbread Book of the Year prize.

"We are delighted to be working with New Line to bring Philip Pullman's extraordinary trilogy to life," said Forte. "In collaboration with New Line we hope to translate these amazing books into an experience that will capture the hearts and minds of movie audiences around the world."

"We are thrilled to work with Deborah and Scholastic Entertainment in bringing these great books to the big screen," Emmerich added. "Like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, it's one of those books that captures your imagination and just runs with it. We can take advantage of the CGI effects available now and bring this world to life in a celluloid universe."

New Line's executive vice president of production Lynn Harris will oversee the project along with Ileen Maisel.

Scholastic Entertainment Inc. (SEI) is the entertainment and media division of Scholastic Inc., the global children's publishing and media company. Scholastic Entertainment is a leading producer of quality, family-oriented television programming, feature films, videos, and Web sites, and a major licensor and marketer of children's properties worldwide. Scholastic Entertainment's critically acclaimed feature films include The Baby-sitters Club, The Indian in the Cupboard and The Mighty. SEI is now in production for I Spy for HBO Family, and is the producer of such kid TV favorites as: Scholastic's Clifford The Big Red Dog, the PBS KIDS'™ award-winning animated series that's the #1 show for 2-5 year olds across all networks; Scholastic's The Magic School Bus®, the top-rated Emmy and Annenberg award-winning series staring Lily Tomlin (Fox Kids); the award-winning Dear America™ and The Royal Diaries™ series' (HBO); Animorphs®, the live-action kids adventure series (Nickelodeon); and Goosebumps, the award-winning, top-rated children's TV series. For more information, visit Scholastic's Webby award-winning Web site at scholastic.com.

Founded in 1967, New Line Cinema is among the entertainment industry's leading independent producers and distributors of theatrical motion pictures. New Line licenses its films to ancillary markets including cable and broadcast television as well as to international venues. The company, which is a subsidiary of AOL Time Warner Inc., operates several divisions including in-house theatrical distribution, marketing, home video, television acquisitions, production, licensing and merchandising units.