The BBC and HBO’s His Dark Materials TV series has roared into San Diego Comic-Con with a new trailer full of iconic moments from The Golden Compass.
Highlights include the terrifying scene where Pantalaimon, Lyra’s daemon, is attacked by a certain golden monkey, as well as scenes from the facility at the North Pole.
These are all familiar elements of Philip Pullman’s famed young adult fantasy series of the same name, previously and partially adapted in 2007’s The Golden Compass. The new TV series is taking another stab at the trilogy, with a cast that includes Daphne Keene (Logan) as lead character Lyra Belacqua, Ruth Wilson as the sinister Mrs. Coulter, James McAvoy as the mysterious Lord Asriel, and Lin-Manuel Miranda as adventurer Lee Scoresby.
At the San Diego Comic-Con panel where the trailer was revealed, Lin Manuel-Miranda said that puppets were used on-set as stand-ins for the CGI daemons. Much like in the 2018 Christopher Robin adaptation, the puppets helped the actors maintain eye contact and stay in the moment.
The show will also expand Mrs. Coulter’s character, something that couldn’t be done in The Golden Compass, which is told from Lyra’s point of view. The show will answer why Mrs. Coulter’s daemon is a monkey, and also why their relationship is different from other human-daemon pairings: generally humans can’t move very far from their daemons, but Mrs. Coulter and that horrible monkey prove the exception.
The BBC greenlit the show in 2015, and in 2018 HBO stepped in as co-producer and international distributor — which is why you’ll be able to watch the eight-episode first season and the already greenlit second season on your HBO Go app and the BBC.
The series has no release date yet, but will premiere in the United States sometime in “late 2019.”
