HisDarkMaterials.org

Variety has just reported that New Line is moving up with the The Golden Compass production and that a director will be named soon to replace Chris Weitz, who wrote the last draft of the script.

Chris Weitz withdrew from the project on December 15 and New Line has been actively looking for potentional candidates ever since then. It's good to know that somebody is still up for the job. Let's just hope this will be the last switch of plan.

Unfortunately that's all the information we have as of yet but please stay tuned for more on the His Dark Materials Movies.

An interesting article about UK movie producer Kevin Loader in which he expresses the interest he had for His Dark Materials eight years ago.

”Eight years ago I was running a film operation in London for Sony pictures and Philip Pullman had published two of those three books [His Dark Materials] and I thought they would make the most amazing films, before Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, and I tried to get the rights. But you couldn’t persuade anyone then, Sony pictures looked at me as if I was a mad man or a person from another planet. Although anything’s possible, sometimes the time isn’t right.”

Click Read More for the full article.

Speculation continues that Worcester College will be used to film the adaptation of Philip Pullman 's award-winning trilogy, His Dark Materials. Following months of rumours, it was announced last year that New Line Cinema, under the director Chris Weitz, had received Pullman 's full support in bringing his work to the screen.

The venture suffered a setback in December when Weitz pulled out of the film but before his resignation, Weitz had stated that he hoped to use Worcester College for a large body of the filming despite the fact that the fictional Jordan College of the narrative is believed to have been based upon Pullman 's own former college, Exeter.

With 'Lord of the Rings' under its belt, the studio is eyeing the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy as a potential blockbuster.

New Line Cinema Corp.'s bet on its screen adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy hit big, amassing close to $3 billion at the box office worldwide. The final installment won a slew of Oscars, including best picture and best director.

Now the studio is ready to roll the dice on another trilogy, the far less well-known "His Dark Materials," by British author Philip Pullman.

New Line, which was behind such diverse offerings as the 2003 remake of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and last year's "Vera Drake," has committed to producing only the first of Pullman's bestselling novels. "The Golden Compass," a special-effects-driven fantasy, could cost more than $150 million to bring to the screen.

The author himself has posted a detailed and very reassuring article on his website, concerning the recent stirrings around the movies.

The Film
Chris Weitz, New Line, 'The Times', and how to read

A few hours ago, New Line Cinema announced that Chris Weitz, who had been appointed to write and direct the first His Dark Materials film, had withdrawn.

We just received word from New Line cinema that Chris Weitz is leaving as director of the His Dark Materials movies. He cites 'Technical challenges' as the reason for his departure.

Click here to read the press release

THE Hollywood adaptation of Philip Pullman’s trilogy His Dark Materials, in which two children do battle with an evil, all-powerful church, is being rewritten to remove anti-religious overtones. Chris Weitz, the director, has horrified fans by announcing that references to the church are likely to be banished in his film. Meanwhile the “Authority”, the weak God figure, will become “any arbitrary establishment that curtails the freedom of the individual”. The studio wants alterations because of fears of a backlash from the Christian Right in the United States. The changes are being made with the support of Pullman, who told The Times last year that he received “a large amount” for the rights.

Fantasy fans were delighted earlier this year when New Line announced they would adapt Philip Pullman's sci-fi/fantasy novels 'His Dark Materials'. Even more so when the script was trusted onto award-winning writer Tom Stoppard, known for 'Brazil' and 'Shakespeare In Love' among others.

Pullman and Stoppard both expressed discomfort when the studio announced 'American Pie' director Chris Weitz at the helm. Pullman reassured his fan by saying he met Weitz in the summer, and he wouldn't let his work take the 'American Pie' tangent. As for Stoppard, he went about his business, and turned in his first draft a few months ago, waiting for word from New line.

New Line Cinema sent us the following statement regarding the "replacement" of Tom Stoppard with Chris Weitz:

We have an incredible amount of respect for Tom Stoppard and value his contributions to the His Dark Materials project. However, because Chris Weitz is a writer/director, we believe it is important to give him the opportunity to bring his vision to life.

After meeting with Chris, His Dark Materials author Phillip Pullman agreed with our assessment that Chris was the right man for the job. He is an Academy Award-nominated writer/director with an excellent take on the material and we are confident that he will do this wonderful story justice on the big screen.

In my opinion this is just a way of saying that Mr Stoppard is indeed off the project, but if Pullman has this much faith in Weitz, then I guess that we should too.

He is widely acknowledged as one of Britain's finest playwrights, and his film scripts have won him one Oscar and another nomination. But yesterday Sir Tom Stoppard told The Independent on Sunday that his eagerly awaited film adaptation of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy had been quietly shelved by the Hollywood director brought in to make the movie.

Stoppard, who won an Oscar in 1998 for Shakespeare in Love, was hired to script the fantasy epic, and completed his draft screenplay for the first installment, The Golden Compass, several months ago.

But yesterday, Stoppard admitted he had heard nothing since its submission and the appointment of one of Hollywood's rising stars, Chris Weitz, as director. Stoppard said he assumes his services are no longer required.

This article gives an interesting summary of what happened to Stoppard and the His Dark Materials Movies.

The venerable playwright Sir Tom Stoppard, one of the cleverest and wittiest of British dramatists, has been quietly dropped from a major Hollywood film project.

Stoppard, whose film credits include the Oscar-winning Shakespeare in Love, and Enigma and The Russia House, was commissioned to write the first draft for the keenly awaited film of Philip Pullman’s trilogy, His Dark Materials.

A while ago someone sent in a News Submission titled "Filming of HDM". It went something like this:

"I live in Oxford and friend has told me that New Line Cinema (or whoever the production company is) has just moved into a set of barns outside of Oxford (this friend lives next to these barns, so seems fairly credible) and are converting them into offices and storage while filming takes place in the city... seems like things are moving!!"

We were a bit hesitant to post this unconfirmed rumor, so we checked with New Line first. They replied to tell us that:

"At this time, there are no production offices being set up for HDM, as the studio has only just received Chris Weitz' first draft. I can tell you that the script draft was incredibly well received, and Chris is already commencing on a second draft with an eye toward really fast-tracking this project."

So, no filming yet, but things are definately moving :)

New Line Cinema has bought the feature film rights for Susanna Clarke's best-selling fantasy novel 'Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell'.

Clarke's debut novel, 'Jonathan Strange...' has become a publishing phenomenon and Top 10 bestseller in England.

It has been called a Harry Potter for adults and compared to 'The Lord of the Rings'.

New Line Cinema previously adapted 'The Lord of the Rings' into a nearly $3 billion grossing film franchise.

According to Variety, the studio is also reading Chris Weitz's first draft of 'The Golden Compass', the first book in Philip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' trilogy, and searching for a writer for 'Inkheart', a fantasy franchise by German author Cornelia Funke.

Release Date: TBA 2006

After conquering the world with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, New Line Cinema's next big book-to-cinema adaptation is somewhat more ambitious. While Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy is in fact considered to be a children's story, it is a dark, scientific and occasionally weighty theological work that is finding a devoted adult audience as well.

As of this writing (March 3, 2004), the title for the project is indeed His Dark Materials; however, it seems impossible that the three books that make up the series -- The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and the Amber Spyglass -- could be combined into one coherent and quality film. In fact, each of the novels has its own distinct tone and theme, so the expectation would be that like the Lord of the Rings, they will be divided into their own separate entities.

Chris Weitz gave a very interesting interview which answers a lot of the questions that many of us His Dark Materials fans have been discussing for months.

Click here to read the interview.