HisDarkMaterials.org

This article contains a great deal of previously posted material, but also several new quotes.

About.com reports: Production designer Dennis Gassner is used to working on big films, with movies such as Bugsy, Road to Perdition, Big Fish, and Jarhead dotting his impressive resume. But Gassner admits that bringing to life the world of The Golden Compass – the first of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy to make its way onto the big screen – was a special challenge. On the London set of New Line’s The Golden Compass the 20+ year veteran of films led the online media through his part in the process of bringing to life The Golden Compass.

Empire asks: And you’ve since chosen a role in what is set to be another huge film, The Golden Compass – what attracted you to playing Serafina?

Eva Green: I read the Philip Pullman trilogy and really liked the role – she's strong and hundreds of years old. She is a witch who is a guide, philosopher and friend to Lyra. It is quite a mysterious role which I found attractive.

In this article Drew takes a look at why The Golden Compass might be harder to sell than some might think; a much debated topic during the set visit.

AICN writes: And now that I’ve been to the set, I’m still skeptical of the film as a commercial property. Seriously... what’s the thirty-second version of THE GOLDEN COMPASS? Or even the sixty-second version?

MTV Movie News writes: Anyone trying to navigate their way through the film adaptations of "His Dark Materials" — without having read the books — is going to need their own golden compass. After all, within the installments of Philip Pullman's trilogy, even his own characters have a lot of questions that need answering, such as our heroine Lyra's ever-pressing, "What is Dust?" — and she's the one with the alethiometer! (More on that in a bit.) So if the buzz on Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig's upcoming film series has left you wondering what's so dark about this material, here's a few things you'll need to know about this anti-"Narnia."

Canmag writes: Ruth Myers designed the costumes for The Golden Compass. With star Nicole Kidman, who looks glamorous in anything, Myers let the clothing work for the actress.

"Mrs. Coulter, I wanted to essentially give you the sense of being the most glamorous woman in the world but I didn't want it to be loud glamour," said Myers. "So I had to go back and think what I thought the most beautiful looking women were."

Eva Green plays Sarafina, the witch, another joy to dress. "This is Sarafina who is the sort of pure shade of night," Myers demonstrated. " She has got this image, she is sort of your dream of midnight, or my dream of midnight."

CHUD.com reports: Standing in a vast expanse of green, the young girl hugs a disembodied polar bear head. She cries and speaks, inaudibly where I’m standing, to the head, which responds to her in an equally disembodied voice that is loud, gravelly and probably on tape somewhere. “I will try, Lyra Silvertongue,” the voice rumbles.

Access Hollywood has posted some new stills from The Golden Compass.  The new images are mixed in with previous stills and include Ben Walker as Roger Parslow, Dakota Blue Richards with the photogram machine and some concept art.

Check the new images.

Thanks to anna11 for the alert.

ComingSoon.net reports: New Line Cinema is currently adapting Philip Pullman's fantasy adventure tale The Golden Compass, which is the first volume in the author's "His Dark Materials" trilogy. The movie is filming right now at Shepperton Studios in London and ComingSoon.net got a sneak peek at 10 minutes of early assembled footage when we recently visited the set.

CanMag reports: Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy will become the next piece of fantasy literature brought to the screen. The first film, The Golden Compass, is in production in London and producer Deborah Forte invited press to observe their work so far.

CanMag reports: Production designer Dennis Gassner had quite a task on The Golden Compass. As the fourth or fifth major fantasy franchise to come to the screen, how could he distinguish it from the other popular entries? This one even has many snowy arctic scenes like Narnia and Lord of the Rings.

Dawn Primarolo, the UK MP and Paymaster General visited Shepperton Studios earlier this month and met with - amongst others - Chris Weitz, Dakota Blue Richards and the producers of the movie. Pictures were taken of this event, and it shows a look on the set of The Golden Compass.

See the pictures here.

We'll probably receive the pictures from the press event Ryan visited next week. Those pictures should provide us with even more footage from the set at Shepperton Studios!

Introduction

Most people who have read Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” are looking forward to seeing Chris Weitz’ adaptation in cinemas this December. In this article we take a look at why they should keep an open mind.

Over the last three years that we have run HisDarkMaterials.org it has become clear that there is a kind of magic to the trilogy that is not easily found in other books. Almost all readers of the books have fallen in love with them; this has lead to a very intense scrutiny of the whole process of the movies’ development. Let me just take a look at some of the concerns that have been mentioned before by members of the website.

fbi_woman alerts us that a press kit from The Golden Compass movie adaptation has appeared on eBay.

From the seller's description:

"It contains 14 think gossy pages with beautiful color photos of scenes from the movie, its cast and artwork of scenes not yet filmed at time of printing."

The auction is worth a visit just to view the provided photographs.

I just got updated by phone by a very enthusiastic Lord Asriel. Our beloved admin has had a great day at Shepperton Studios today, meeting with Chris Weitz and Dakota Blue Richards, and he's seen a huge lot of things.

First of all, he stressed to me that he's now 100% behind Dakota Blue Richards in every way. According to him and I quote: "Dakota's a prodigy, she's simply a stunning actress”.

He's seen the shooting of a scene from the end of The Golden Compass where Lyra says goodbye to Iorek. Dakota was talking to a simple square block that was supposed to be Iorek but still it was "heart wrenching" to look at.

He's also met Dakota's stunt double who's a multi-times Karate champion and “simply amazing”. Overall, Lord Asriel is now completely behind Dakota Blue Richards and even stressed it by saying: "I will personally permaban anyone who still criticises DBR after this". You have been warned.

We are pleased to announce that our very own administrator Lord Asriel will be attending New Line's press event in London this week, which will include a visit to the set of The Golden Compass and a visit to the set of upcoming fantasy movie Inkheart.

This will provide the fan community with novel insights as to how the His Dark Materials trilogy is being brought to life by New Line.

Lord Asriel, who will be in London from Monday through Thursday, will try to post daily summaries of his activities, so watch this space!

If there are any questions that you might have regarding the movie production please post them as comments to this article, LA will do his best to see them answered!

Update: Lord Asriel arrived safely. You can expect updates on Tuesday.