Deadline brings word that HBO has partnered with BBC, Bad Wolf, and New Line Cinema to co-produce and distribute the upcoming series His Dark Materials based off of Philip Pullman’s fantasy book trilogy. HBO has also acquired worldwide rights to the series outside of the UK.
The first season of His Dark Materials follows Lyra (Dafne Keen), a seemingly ordinary but brave young woman from another world. Lyra’s search for a kidnapped friend uncovers a sinister plot involving stolen children and becomes a quest to understand a mysterious phenomenon called Dust. As she journeys through the worlds, including our own, Lyra meets a determined and courageous boy called Will. Together they encounter extraordinary beings and dangerous secrets, with the fate of both the living — and the dead — in their hands.
Dafne Keen (Logan) will be playing the main character Lyra with Lin Manuel-Miranda (Hamilton, Mary Poppins Returns) as Lee Scoresby, James McAvoy (Split) as Lyra’s uncle, Lord Asriel and Clarke Peters (The Wire) playing The Master who trains Lyra. Ian Gelder (Queers) who will be portraying Librarian Scholar Charles, Ruth Wilson (The Affair) as the glamorous Mrs. Coulter, Will Keen (Wolf Hall) as Father MacPhail, Ariyon Bakare (Life) as Lord Boreal, and Georgina Campbell (Black Mirror) as journalist Adele Starminster.
RELATED: BBC’s His Dark Materials Renewed Early for a Second Season
New additions to the series include Anne-Marie Duff (Suffragette) as Ma Costa, James Cosmo (Game of Thrones) as Farder Coram, Lucien Msamati (Richard II) as John Faa, Mat Fraser (Cast Offs) as Raymond Van Geritt, with Geoff Bell (War Horse) as Jack Verhoeven, and Simon Manyonda (King Lear) as Benjamin de Ruyter.
The young actors joining the cast include Lewin Lloyd as Roger Parslow, Daniel Frogson as Tony Costa, Tyler Howitt as Billy Costa and Archie Barnes as Pantalaimon.
The King’s Speech director Tom Hooper will direct the eight-part series. The His Dark Materials adaptation will be produced by Jane Tranter and Julie Gardner’s Bad Wolf with New Line Cinema for BBC One. Hooper will act as lead director and will helm the first two episodes of season two as well. Dawn Shadforth, Otto Bathurst, Euros Lyn, and Jamie Childs will direct the remaining episodes of the second season.
The His Dark Materials series was ordered by BBC One and was written by Jack Thorne (National Treasure) back in 2015. The book series consists of Northern Lights, which became the 2007 film The Golden Compass with Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. The stories are about the coming of age of two children, Lyra and Will, who move through parallel universes.
The series will be executive produced by Hooper, Pullman, Tranter, Gardner, Dan McCulloch, Deborah Forte, Toby Emmerich and Caroline Blackwood for New Line, and Ben Irving and Piers Wenger for BBC One.
