12 years later a series appeared that tells the story to the end

The fantasy film, which is being broadcast on TV today, was to be the prelude to a large-scale trilogy film adaptation in 2007. But after the start of The Golden Compass everything turned out differently. Anyone who mourns the end of the story, which never came to the cinema, can now watch the story as a series to the end.

On TV: The Golden Compass opened the door to a fantasy epic in vain

The Golden Compass was created after the celebrated Best-selling trilogy * by Philip Pullman: Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards) lives in a fantasy parallel universe in which every human has a “dæmon” as an animal companion at his side. An orphan, the girl was raised at Oxford University, partly by her uncle Asriel (Daniel Craig). But when the researcher presents his scientific discovery of “dust,” the entire world order is thrown into turmoil.

Lyra then embarks on a perilous journey with the device of a golden compass that always tells the truth, to find out among witches, balloonists and armored polar bears what is really going on.

Although The Golden Compass looks like a pure children’s film at first glance with its young main character, it comes up with a sophisticated world and ambivalent characters that can hardly be pigeonholed into good and evil. The story beyond overused fantasy themes deals with the relationship between science and religion and penetrates into parallel worlds as well as into human souls and ideas of death. But before the film in its sequels quite to this complex fantasy substructure was able to advance, the trilogy was canceled after the first film.

Without Part 2 and 3: Why the sequels to The Golden Compass never became reality

Although New Line Cinema commissioned the sequel The Magic Knife* from screenwriter Hossein Amini after the launch of The Golden Compass, the planned sequels of the US$180 million fantasy film were a condition from the start tied to the financial success of the first part.

In the USA, however, the box office results of just 70 million US dollars remained far behind expectations return. And although the fantasy start finally followed worldwide and flushed over 370 million into the box office, the sequel plans were put on hold in 2008.

The studio cited the recession in the global economy at the time as the reason. Sam Elliott, who plays balloonist Lee Scoresby in The Golden Compass, also voiced what’s been rumored behind the scenes: that the vocal denunciation of films critical of religion by the Catholic Church played its part in the cancellation of further sequels.

The Golden Compass never finished the fantasy trilogy, but it did complete a series

In 2019, however, Jack Thorne (Enola Holmes) did one second attempt at the fantasy film adaptation: His Dark Materials came as a series remake no less star-studded: Instead of Daniel Craig, Nicole Kidman and Eva Green, James McAvoy, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Dafne Keen now filled the ranks of the cast.

The series adaptation succeeded where the planned film trilogy failed: In 3 seasons, the fantasy series filmed all 3 books and only brought the story about Lyra last year to a brilliant conclusion.

Fantasy Podcast: Is Netflix’s The Witcher universe doomed after Henry Cavill’s exit?

In Season 3, Netflix’s fantasy hit The Witcher bids farewell to Henry Cavill as the lead actor. In the future, the witcher will be played by Liam Hemsworth. Can the series, with all of its planned spin-offs, survive this setback?

We discuss with FILMSTARTS guest Sebastian whether Henry Cavill’s farewell was successful, what strengths and weaknesses the season 3 finale brings to Netflix and how the fantasy universe of The Witcher will continue.

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