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The Golden Compass arrives on DVD and Blu-Ray today, 29 April.

The Golden Compass is released in a two-disc special edition as well as a single-disc edition.

A Best Buy Exclusive offers fans a bonus disc included with the two-disc widescreen edition of the film. The extra disc includes footage of the cast, stunt work, and filming locations.

Please note: some places appear to be promoting an "Extended Edition" of The Golden Compass. Note that this is actually the two-disc edition of the movie. There is no extended footage available at this time outside of the early film left in The Golden Compass video game.

Initial projections have panned out as The Golden Compass film topped $300 million in foreign markets while simultaneously not making it to $100 million in the US market.

Variety reports:After its strong start in Japan last week, "The Golden Compass" is on course to make box office history as the first film to gross $300 million in foreign while failing to reach $100 million in North America.

Variety reports: The weekend also marked another success story for "The Golden Compass," thanks to a socko $10 million Japanese launch -- including $2.5 million in sneak screenings Feb. 23 and 24. That brought the foreign cume to $272 million, or nearly four times the domestic take in a performance that underlines the international appeal of fantasy pics.

Reuters reports: Time Warner Inc (TWX.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Thursday it will consolidate its New Line Cinema film studio under Warner Bros. Entertainment.

View the Official Press Release

The Golden Compass is the winner in Best Visual Effects for the 80th Annual Academy Awards.

The team behind the visual effects is made up of Supervisor Mike Fink, Bill Westenhofer (Rhythm & Hues), Ben Morris (Framestore CFC), and Trevor Wood.

Our friends in the Sraf network at Hisdarkmaterialsnews.com, the Chinese fan community, have alerted us to a theatrical release date set for The Golden Compass to hit theatres across mainland China. Each year, China imports only 20 "revenue-sharing" films, and it's great to see The Golden Compass as one of them.

The Golden Compass China release date is set for 28 March.

Dennis Gassner, production designer of The Golden Compass, was awarded this years Excellence in Production Design for a Fantasy Film in 2007 award, presented by the Art Directors Guild. The Golden Compass was up against Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Ratatouille and 300.

Full list of nominees

Dennis is also nominated for an Academy Award in Best Art Direction. The Academy Awards ceremony is scheduled for Sunday, February 24, 2008.

The Golden Compass has won an award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) in the category of "Special Visual Effects." The visual effects team was led by Michael Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris, and Trevor Wood.

Javno reports:

In recognition of Japan's upcoming premiere of The Golden Compass, Japanese jeweler, Tanaka Kikinzoku, revealed a one-year seven person project: a genuine 18-carat gold replica alethiometer.

View the picture

It has been announced that The Golden Compass will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on April 29th. There will be standard DVD version and a special two disc edition on both DVD and Blu-ray. This special edition will have two hours of extra footage including Behind The Scenes look and a Lyra’s world feature.

The DVD will feature the standard cut as seen in cinemas, and unfortunately there’s no word of an extended or director’s cut yet.

Our Italian friends over at QuesteOscureMaterie.it alerted us of the DVD covers and promo poster. Check them out over here.

The International Film Music Critics Association have announced their nominees for the film and television music awards 2007. Alexandre Desplat is nominated a total of seven times with his scores for The Golden Compass and Lust, Caution: Film score of the year (for both The Golden Compass and Lust, Caution), Film score composer of the year and Best original score - fantasy/science fiction (The Golden Compass) and several more.

It’s very good to see that Alexandre’s excellent work is finally recognised by critics.

Check out the full list of nominees.

The Golden Compass film has been nominated for two Academy Awards, in Best Art Direction, and Best Visual Effects.

Full list of nominees

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts today announced the nominees for the annual BAFTA awards. The Golden Compass was nominated in the category Best Special Visual Effects to the credit of Michael Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris and Trevor Woods. The movie is competing for the award with Spider-Man 3, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and The Bourne Ultimatum.

Love drama Atonement was nominated no less than fourteen times, There Will Be Blood and No Country For Old Men both nine times.

The BAFTA award ceremony will take place in London February 10th.

Most of the Golden Compass reviews that rated the movie negatively remarked that it was a shallow effort suffering from a terribly confusing plot.

In The Times, critic James Christopher complained that:

[The Golden Compass] works like an Ouija board. It can reveal all sorts of hidden truths, but it 's hopeless when it comes to directions. You need proper charts, a year’s supply of baked beans, and Sir Ernest Shackleton if you’ve got any hope of finding the plot. Unless you have read the books, you will have little idea of what’s going on.

What led to this confusing movie? A lot of people were eager to point the finger at director Chris Weitz. As Kyle Smith stated in The New York Post:

Chris Weitz [..] has been swamped by the task of condensing a densely imaginative 430-page book. It's as if, given the task of setting up a display of animals that would fit in his living room, he went to the city zoo and cut off a 6-inch portion of every beast, then tossed the bloody chunks in a pile.