One day about five years ago, Jane Tranter was on a flight from Los Angeles to New York. AdvertisementOnce she was safely back on the ground, Tranter made a mental note: find out what was going on with the rights to Pullman’s books. This week, HBO is attempting a do-over of sorts with “His Dark Materials,” a series co-produced with the BBC and starring Dafne Keen, Ruth Wilson, Lin-Manuel Miranda and James McAvoy. Yet “His Dark Materials” has invited virtually none of the controversy of the 2007 film, which was the target of a boycott campaign by the Catholic League, an advocacy group, and was denounced as “cold and inhumane” in an editorial in the Vatican newspaper. “What is unquestionable and unequivocal is that Pullman, through ‘His Dark Materials,’ takes a big swipe at oppressive regimes,” she said by phone from Cardiff, Wales, where her production company, Bad Wolf, is based.

Source: Los Angeles Times November 05, 2019 01:52 UTC