Pre-production begins on the HIS DARK MATERIALS TV series

Bad Wolf Productions today confirmed that shooting is complete on their first project, a TV version of Deborah Harkess's novel A Discovery of Witches for Sky TV, which is interesting in itself. However, more exciting for many will be the news that Bad Wolf are rolling straight into working on their TV version of His Dark Materials, the Philip Pullman novel series.

His Dark Materials consists of the novels Northern Lights (retitled The Golden Compass in the United States for no immediately discernible reason), The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. One of the biggest-selling YA fantasy series of all time, it's also controversial (mostly in the US) for its depiction of religion and criticism of dogma and fundamentalism. A previous attempt to adapt the series with a movie version of The Golden Compass in 2007 was a box office disappointment.

Writer Jack Thorne is working on the new version, which will adapt the three books as five eight-episode seasons. The BBC is funding and co-developing the project with Bad Wolf, New Line and Warner Brothers. Bad Wolf also has an American co-development deal with HBO (they are collaborating on Industry, a drama about the global financial crisis) which may see the show end up on HBO in the US, although this has not been confirmed.

Bad Wolf are also developing a TV series based on Bernard Cornwell's fantastic Warlord Chronicles novel trilogy, although it sounds like this may be on the backburner for now.

His Dark Materials will probably air in late 2019 or early 2020, assuming that they start shooting this year.