We’ve known for some time that the His Dark Materials team would love to film The Book of Dust. The Book of Dust is a trilogy of novels from author Phillip Pullman, set in the same Multiverse as His Dark Materials. I cannot quite call it a sequel, because the first part of The Book of Dust trilogy is actually a prequel. Actually, one short moment from La Belle Sauvage has already been filmed. You may recall in His Dark Materials Season 1 where Asriel delivers baby Lyra to Oxford? This scene is actually the finale of La Belle Sauvage.
Book 2 of The Book of Dust though, is a sequel called The Secret Commonwealth. Book 2 features an adult version of Lyra, and the beginnings of a new adventure. Pullman is currently writing the third book and we already know it will follow on directly from The Secret Commonwealth. It’s reasonable to assume that La Belle Sauvage could be filmed anytime after His Dark Materials is finished. The adaptation would need to feature James McAvoy as Asriel for consistency. However, The Secret Commonwealth would either require a recast of Lyra, or to wait until actress Dafne Keen matures?
His Dark Materials executive producer Jane Tranter recently spoke at the online press event for Season 2. Tranter spoke again about how she’d be excited to make The Book of Dust. Courtesy of Radio Times.
RELATED: His Dark Materials Season 2 Episode Guide: First Five Episodes
“We’d be very excited! Very excited. What could be better? La Belle Sauvage has got Lyra as a baby, and gives some of Asriel and Coulter’s backstory, and some of Lyra’s origin story. And The Secret Commonwealth is one of the best books I’ve ever read. I just don’t think there is a better study of depression, in some ways, in a fantasy landscape. It’s the most exciting story but ,like everything Philip does, it has many levels to it,” she added. “And it’s an extraordinary piece… so huge and ambitious. But if anyone ever gave us the opportunity to do it, we’d be there.”
The main goal right now for the His Dark Materials team is to make sure they get the go ahead for Book 3, The Amber Spyglass, which is expected to take a Season 3 and Season 4 to complete.
Extra’s
However as I said above with the Asriel scene from Season 1, we could get some additional HDM content showing up in the upcoming Season 2 and beyond. Showrunner Jack Thorne spoke about weaving some of Pullman’s smaller stories into His Dark Materials.
“I’m not going to name anything particularly, but I’ll tell you what we did do, and what we do all the time. We’ve got the sort of encyclopaedia in our heads. And we are constantly referring to that. So you pull bits of character from stuff. Once Upon a Time in the North for Lee [Scoresby, played by Lin-Manuel Miranda], is very very important. And actually there’s a few opportunities where we get to use some Once Upon a Time in the North Lee in there. There’s always little bits like that where you’re just pinching like a little piece from somewhere and trying to find places to put that in.”
Once Upon a Time in the North was a novella by Pullman that as you’d guess focused on Scoresby prior to the events of HDM. I guess we will have to keep our eyes peeled for anything from that source in His Dark Materials Season 2?
Are you happy that the His Dark Materials team would love to film The Book of Dust? Leave your thoughts below as always.
SOURCE: Radio Times
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