The Golden Compass

New footage for The Golden Compass

The Golden Compass is still a long way off, but here is some new footage of the movie, courtesy of top fansite His Dark Materials. In the five minutes that this clip lasts, you will see how some of the scenes were shot, how the cgi was handled, and how the actors handled shooting in an environment that, for a big part, was only added afterwards. It's interesting stuff, both for fans of the books and people just looking for a great fantasy movie.

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Bond producers worried about Daniel Craig's Golden Compass shoot

The producers of the James Bond movies were a bit worried when their star travelled to the Arctic Circle to film scenes for The Golden Compass. They weren't worried that their Bond would skid on the ice or anything, they felt a bit uneased by the fact that the crew was shooting The Golden Compass in an area where there were plenty of polar bears. "I guess they were a little concerned that having discovered their new James Bond in Daniel, we then headed to the Arctic Circle where the polar bears were a constant and deadly threat to the crew," Chris Weitz, director of The Golden Compass, told The Daily Express. But Craig himself didn't really care about the threats. "As a massive fan and avid reader of all of Philip Pullman's novels, I was happy to go through the usual hardships," he said. I'm not sure how polar bears figure in as being usual hardships, but when you're James Bond, I guess your usual hardships are a bit different from those of regular folks.

Read more: James Bond, Daniel Craig

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Cast talks some more Golden Compass

A bit more on the Golden Compass movie, as the Calgary Sun posted a pretty comprehensive report of the press conference that the stars and director of the movie gave to promote it in Cannes. And what they had to say will sound pretty reassuring to fans of the books. Take this quote from director Chris Weitz, for instance: "I think they [movie lovers] should be tired of seeing special effects put in place of story and in place of character. "Almost anything can be done in terms of manipulating visual images and making talking animals and exploding things. But I think there will be a backlash against that sort of thing because, eventually, what it comes down to is wanting to be told a story by the fire. The effects must all be done in service of that." Daniel Craig had this to add, when asked what his goal was in shooting this movie: "Keeping the reality as much as possible and telling the story." He did admit that the large amount of special effects work in the movie was quite daunting for him, especially when it came to the scenes where he acted with his daemon (an animal representing a person's soul). "Literally," he told the assorted press, "you're sort of acting against a green blob. A problem Eva Green didn't have. "My daemon, I think, is not going to appear, so I'm not talking to any weird creatures. So it was like a normal movie to me, apart from the fact that I was suspended on wires and flying."

Sam Elliott talks Golden Compass

Sam Elliott is happy to be in the movie version of The Golden Compass, in which he plays a balloonist flying all over the world, named Lee Scoresby. "Luck of the draw," he told Canadian newspaper Ottawa Citizen. "It just came my way, and I was lucky that it did." According to the interview, Elliott was reluctant to accept the role at first, because it was more or less a variation on the cowboy persona that he has played all throughout his life. "There's not a lot of guys around, apparently, to play these cowboys because I seem to do a lot of them." Then the director of the movie, Chris Weitz, wrote him a note. "I couldn't not do it after he wrote this note. He talked about me and my parallels to this character Scoresby. He was very generous in the way he put it, referring to me as an iconic - which is always kind of a daunting phrase - laconic, classic American cowboy. I used to kind of think, 'God, all I do is westerns.' But I've gotten over that, I've grown up and now I'm just thankful that I had this career rather than wishing I had opportunities to do a few things outside the Western box, more than I have. Because I enjoy that."

First footage of The Golden Compass online

Movie studio New Line is in Cannes at the moment, heavily promoting their upcoming book adaptation The Golden Compass, and they are showing off the first footage of the movie, which has now been posted online by website HisDarkMaterials.org. It's very early footage, with a lot of the computer graphics still very much in their early stages, but there are some glimpses at scenes that look pretty amazing. Of course the look of the movie is not the only thing that matters, because it's mostly about how they handled the story, but fans of the books will no doubt love these two minutes of Lyra and friends (and enemies!).

Lots of new Golden Compass stills

Finally, we get a better impression of what the Golden Compass movie will be like, as the first batch of pictures is released. Of course we had that one picture of Nicole Kidman and Dakota Blue Richards, but from that it was hard to get a real clue of what the movie was going to look like. Now there are 18 new stills, all beautiful and all huge, which New Line was so friendly to send over to several websites, and which I was also able to get my hands on. They give us a better look at young newcomer Richards, who portrays leading character Lyra, but also at Sam Elliott as balloonist Lee Scoresby and Daniel Craig as Lord Asriel. I was already looking forward to this movie, as I really dug the first two books (part three is waiting to be devoured next), but these stills make the anticipation grow even more. It's always interesting to see how filmmakers interpret a book that you have read and loved, and even though it does not completely click with what I had in mind, I am sure the many fans of Phillip Pullman's trilogy will be over the moon with these shots. Now all we will have to wait for is to see what the daemons will look like. Click through to get all the thumbnails, then click those for a bigger look! (and click those for an even bigger look, if you're interested)

Continue reading "Lots of new Golden Compass stills" »

Finally, we get a better impression of what the Golden Compass movie will be like, as the first batch of pictures is released. Of course we had that one picture of Nicole Kidman and Dakota Blue Richards, but from that it was hard to get a real clue of what the movie was going to look like. Now there are 18 new stills, all beautiful and all huge, which New Line was so friendly to send over to several websites, and which I was also able to get my hands on. They give us a better look at young newcomer Richards, who portrays leading character Lyra, but also at Sam Elliott as balloonist Lee Scoresby and Daniel Craig as Lord Asriel. I was already looking forward to this movie, as I really dug the first two books (part three is waiting to be devoured next), but these stills make the anticipation grow even more. It's always interesting to see how filmmakers interpret a book that you have read and loved, and even though it does not completely click with what I had in mind, I am sure the many fans of Phillip Pullman's trilogy will be over the moon with these shots. Now all we will have to wait for is to see what the daemons will look like. Click through to get all the thumbnails, then click those for a bigger look! (and click those for an even bigger look, if you're interested)

Screenwriter hired for His Dark Materials 2

Even though New Line is still in the midst of production on their blockbuster epic The Golden Compass, and even though a studio executive has mentioned that no decisions about a sequel will be made until the first movie has been released, the studio has still decided to go out and hire a screenwriter to already pen a script for the adaptation of the second book in the series, The Subtle Knife. The writer in question will be Hossein Amini, whose previous credits include Wings of the Dove and Drive. This shows the studio has a lot of confidence in their new movie, and judging from the pics released today, you cannot blame them!

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Even though New Line is still in the midst of production on their blockbuster epic The Golden Compass, and even though a studio executive has mentioned that no decisions about a sequel will be made until the first movie has been released, the studio has still decided to go out and hire a screenwriter to already pen a script for the adaptation of the second book in the series, The Subtle Knife. The writer in question will be Hossein Amini, whose previous credits include Wings of the Dove and Drive. This shows the studio has a lot of confidence in their new movie, and judging from the pics released today, you cannot blame them!

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Official site for Golden Compass online

The official website for The Golden Compass has been opened, and it's well worth a visit. Contrary to most websites for movies that are still so far off, it's full of cool stuff, like new pictures, concept art and lots of information on the movie, which shows the studio is really confident about it. A great place to hang around for a bit, so you can already get a taste of what is to come. And we still have to wait a whole year? Click!

Studio confident about Golden Compass movie

The Chief Operating Officer of Time Warner, Jeff Bewkes, has spoken out on the movies his studios (Warner, New Line) are releasing next year, and he expressed confidence in The Golden Compass. "It won't be another Lord of the Rings," he said, "but it could be a nice solid thing. And if it is, we have three of them." I'm not sure if the comparison with Lord of the Rings was really necessary, since the books are hard to compare in my opinion, but at least it's a good thing that the head of the studio responsible for making the money has confidence that it will be a success. Although it does sting a little bit to see that Bewkes is minimalizing these wonderful books to nothing more than money machines.

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Will the Golden Compass movie be spectacular?

It seems that fans of the His Dark Materials books have nothing to worry about. The movie version of their favorite series of books is well underway, and author Philip Pullman has given his nod of approval. "I think it`s going to be - at the very least - spectacular," Pulman said on his personal website, and when the author of the book you are making a movie of is giving you his nod of approval, you know you are on to something good.

Whenever an announcement is made that Hollywood is going to make another book-based movie, fans of that book are flushed by mixed emotions. On one hand: It's cool! You will see the book that you love so much being brought to life, and with all the insane amounts of money that Hollywood throws at these things, you know that at the very least you are in for something spectacular. Plus, you will find that your friends, that normally don't read books, and who look at you with a look of "here we go again" when you tell them how wonderful the book is, will suddenly be more interested in what you have to say when Hollywood has started bombarding them with their usual hype. But then there's the bad things...