One more Golden Compass link. The Atlantic’s How Hollywood Saved God goes into how the studio scrubbed out the more controversial themes from the novel. Pullman famously said My books are about killing God, a quote which gets reprinted in almost every article about the film, making it hard for the studio to glance over that fact when trying to get potential viewers to focus on talking polar bears.
All things being equal, Pullman told me, New Line would prefer he were, well, the late author of The Golden Compass. Dead? Yes! Absolutely! If something happened to him, there would be expressions of the most heartfelt regrets, yet privately they would be saying, Thank God.
Lots more in the article (including major spoilers for the trilogy).
Do be on the lookout as the pre-release talk of the film heats up this week for anyone who actually uses this as an opportunity to discuss religion in our lives. Lots of people will spend their time condemning the film instead of engaging audiences at the precise time their interest is focused on matters such as free will and original sin.