This article from the Guardian reports that:
"Philip Pullman's Whitbread-award winning His Dark Materials Trilogy was optioned by the US studio Miramax. It will be adapted for the London stage by the National Theatre in December, amid mumblings that British cinema lacks the drive of its risk-taking theatre directors. "
I asked Newline for confirmation, and they said they were still doing the movies, that Miramax has got nothing to do with it, and that the Guardian simply had made a mistake.
The British film industry has set up a fund of nearly £1m to try and loosen Hollywood's grip on children's cinema, as American producers spend millions buying up the film-rights to British children's fiction, leaving the nation with slim-pickings.
The Children's Film Foundation, launched in the 1950s to provide "moral" matinee entertainment, has been given £900,000 over three years to kickstart a British sector which is in decline.
Now named the Children's Film and Television Foundation, it will develop at least 15 films in three years, providing a "mixed diet" for children weaned on Hollywood.
Special effects extravaganzas will be shunned in favour of smaller-scale character and story-led features and homegrown animation, funded by the lottery, the UK Film Council, and the BBC.
Part of the motivation lies in the industry's embarrassment that US studios are grabbing the rights to much of Britain's current renaissance in children's fiction.
The film adaptations of JK Rowling's Harry Potter series have reaped millions for Warner Brothers in the US, despite being shot in Britain.
Philip Pullman's Whitbread-award winning His Dark Materials Trilogy was optioned by the US studio Miramax. It will be adapted for the London stage by the National Theatre in December, amid mumblings that British cinema lacks the drive of its risk-taking theatre directors.
Even the recent blockbuster Tolkien screen-adaptations were a foreign affair.
Historically, British texts such as Peter Pan, James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory have had to cross the Atlantic to be filmed.
British children's films can make money abroad. The part lottery-funded Chicken Run made a staggering $106m (£74.5m) at the US box office alone. Yet producers say it is currently almost impossible to get a children's film financed and distributed in Britain.
Current British projects, such as a big-screen adaptation of the Magic Roundabout television series, show that the ideas are there, but it is hard to keep them homegrown.
A low-budget film adaptation of Melvin Burgess's children's novel, Angel For May, was developed by the Children's Film and Television Fund two years ago. After showing on ITV, it was invited to 25 film festivals, winning ten international feature film awards.
Yesterday it reached the final nomination list for an international Emmy and it opens in Dutch cinemas this weekend - yet it still has not secured a British cinema release.
"This seems a pity, as it is going on general release abroad," Burgess said. The writer has just sold the rights to his controversial novel of teenage male sexuality, Doing It, to Touchstone in the US. Channel Four had shown interest, but the Americans were able to put money upfront.
In the US, Doing It could stand to loose its teenage catchment and be made for an adult audience.
Anna Home, chief executive of the CFTF, said the US was optioning "practically everything" from the stable of children's fiction and it was galling for British producers to have to stand by and watch.
She added: "There is no lack of material in Britain, it's getting the funding to make and distribute the film.
"Despite the great success of films like Harry Potter, children's film is still not perceived as that exciting in Britain. British children are missing out culturally by existing on a diet of US films."
[The Guardian, 11/10/03]
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