The sequel to the film adaptation of Philip Pullman’s novel “The Golden Compass” has allegedly been shelved.
Reports surfacing on the film industry website Internet Movie Database stated that the film versions of The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, the next two books in the His Dark Materials trilogy, have been put on hold.
The Golden Compass cost New Line Cinema around £90million to make, and was one of the most expensive projects in film history. Suggestions have arisen that film production may have been halted due to fears that the current economic crisis would lead to reduced cinema audiences.
Eva Green, the former Bond girl who played the witch-queen Serafina Pekkala in The Golden Compass, has admitted that, “at the moment, it [the film project] is quite dead.”
Oxford-based author Philip Pullman said he was “disappointed” by the news, but “not surprised”.
“Dakota Blue Richards [the actress playing the central character Lyra] is getting older, which makes a sequel less likely. It the long-term, who knows? Perhaps they will make a sequel in 25 years time,” Pullman continued.
The film was the sixth most successful film at the box office in 2007.
Pullman is an alumni of Exeter College, and many of the scenes in “The Golden Compass” were filmed in Oxford itself.
