What Went Wrong: The Golden Compass
By Shalimar Sahota
February 3, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Some children were being told by their parents that they couldn’t watch The Golden Compass because, “They kill God” at the end! I don’t know who "they" are, however there is some confusion. Ill-informed parents must have assumed The Golden Compass to be a complete adaptation of Philip Pullman’s trilogy of fantasy novels, His Dark Materials. It is in the final book, The Amber Spyglass, where a God-like character, known as The Authority, dies.
This might as well be a good a time to say that the filmed adaptation of The Golden Compass does NOT contain God, or a Jesus-like character and Jesus is NOT God (otherwise who was up in Heaven?). Still, you would think that even with this level of misunderstanding the film should have a seen a spike in audience attendance. After all, millions flocked to see the death of a certain biblical leader in The Passion of the Christ and that made over $350 million in the US alone.
After Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy earned over $2.9 billion worldwide, New Line Cinema wanted to take the next logical step by milking the franchise as much as possible. So they set about developing J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit (given rights issues, it would be co-financed by MGM and New Line). However, Jackson believed that he had not received what he was owed from merchandising revenue for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, so launched a lawsuit against New Line. Head of New Line Robert Shaye said, “I do not want to make a movie with somebody who is suing me.” Fair enough.
In looking to replicate the success of the Lord of the Rings trilogy by starting a new franchise, part of the problem came with New Line’s chosen source material, Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. Although immensely popular (the first novel won the Carnegie Medal in 1995), there was a touch of controversy due to their anti-religious slant. Pullman even describes himself as an atheist and in an interview declared, “My books are about killing God.” Instead of adapting each novel by filming back-to-back, they would start by adapting the first in the trilogy, Northern Lights, renamed The Golden Compass in the US.
The story takes place in an alternate world, where every human’s soul is manifested in the form of an animal creature (known as a daemon), where armor-clad talking-polar-bears roam the Arctic, and everything is run by an institution known as The Magisterium. Orphaned girl Lyra Belacqua (Dakota Blue Richards) resides at Jordan College. She secretly watches her uncle Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig) lead a presentation to fellow scholars, and members of the Magisterium, showing visual proof in the Arctic of a mysterious magical particle known as "Dust." Later, when dining at the high table, Lyra meets with Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman), described as "a friend" of the college. Mrs. Coulter requests to take Lyra with her as her assistant. Before Lyra leaves, the master of the college bequeaths her a magical golden compass, which allows her to see the truth. Lyra soon discovers the truth about Mrs. Coulter; that she’s leading a sinister organization referred to as "Gobblers," kidnapping local children and doing experiments on them.
After New Line acquired the rights, they commissioned Tom Stoppard to script the screenplay. Then came director Chris Weitz, who was a fan of the books, which he read while shooting About a Boy in the UK. New Line eventually rejected Stoppard’s script and asked Weitz to start from scratch. The script he handed in was 156-pages long. Feeling the pressure of taking on a huge blockbuster, Weitz left the project. His script stayed on and director Anand Tucker took up the film. Citing creative differences with the studio, Tucker left in May 2006. So New Line asked Weitz to come back, and he accepted.
A teaser trailer was released in May 2007, making sure to mention how New Line, “Opened the door to Middle Earth.” With a cast that included Daniel Craig, Nicole Kidman and Eva Green, how on Earth could this fail? Also, in the months leading up to the film’s release, the first book in the trilogy saw an increase in sales. However, some of those readers were not pleased.
Although the books had their fair share of critics at the time, it didn’t reach the likes of Fox News until those months before the film opened. A campaign to boycott the film was led by Bill Donohue of The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights (AKA The Magisterium), describing the film as, “atheism for kids.” They even produced a booklet, The Golden Compass: Agenda Unmasked, saying that their goal was to, “educate Christians so that they know exactly what the film’s pernicious agenda really is.” You know, because everything they say is right, and you should let them decide what your child believes in rather than having them make up their own mind. Plus, the books are already out there, so God forbid there should be a film, since that’s how children get most of their knowledge these days. But what would I know? My family reminds me that I’m not a very intelligent person.
“New Line doesn’t want to make the biggest art film ever,” said Weitz in an interview with Empire magazine, before the film opened. “In some ways they’d be glad if the whole religious thing just never happened. But that’s not the way I wanna do it.” Being a fan, Weitz wanted to remain faithful. If New Line wanted to deviate from the religious side, then maybe they shouldn’t have brought the rights to His Dark Materials in the first place - especially when taking into consideration where the story goes in the remaining two books. While the first book merely sets up the church, or in this case the Magisterium, as some kind of oppressive institution, it’s not till the second and third books, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, that it gets down to breaking up organized religion.
Few of the religious overtones actually made it across in the film, though Weitz himself said he would not hold back with the sequels. “I have first shot at [a sequel] if New Line wants me,” said Weitz in Empire magazine. “We’ll see if they enjoyed the experience of working with me or not. But first of all people have to decide whether they want to go and see this film.” Given the Catholic backlash, people in the US didn’t, but those outside the US did.
The Golden Compass was one of the most expensive films ever made, with a production budget of $180 million. Opening in over 20 countries on December 7, 2007, it managed to open at #1 in the US to a paltry $25.7 million. Spending only four weeks in the US top ten, it earned just $70.1 million during its entire run. New Line sold off the worldwide rights (something they have done with all their films); a bad move in hindsight, for the film earned just over $300 million overseas, with $50 million coming from its country of origin, the UK, and an additional $33 million earned in Japan.
When at the San Diego Comic-Con in 2009 to promote The Twilight Saga: New Moon, Weitz revealed that The Golden Compass was recut by New Line, and that his experience was, “a terrible one,” saying that by “being faithful to the book I was working at odds with the studio.” New Line had forced Weitz to make changes, be it dropping scenes, or casting Ian McKellen as the voice of Iorek Byrnison over Nonso Anozie. If any sequel were to go ahead, it seems clear that Weitz won’t be involved, though in all honesty, it’s just not going to happen.
“The Catholic church happened to The Golden Compass,” said Sam Elliot (who played Lee Scoresby), in an interview with UK newspaper Evening Standard. As to why there is no sequel, he said, “I think New Line is scared off.” Donohue of the Catholic League was delighted that the boycott worked, saying, “I knew if we could hurt the box office receipts here, it might put the brakes on the next movie.”
The trailers do show scenes that never made it into the final film. Notably, the end of the book is not present in the film. Although shot, it was Weitz’s decision to close with a more positive conclusion, opting to have those scenes open the now unlikely sequel. There are no deleted scenes on the DVD, but some of that "real ending" does appear in The Golden Compass video game. When released theatrically it ran at 113 minutes. In an interview, Weitz had expressed interest in putting out a director’s cut of the film, saying that “it could probably end up at two and a half hours.”
On December 18th, just 11 days after the release of The Golden Compass, there was a press release from New Line announcing that Peter Jackson would be executive producer on The Hobbit. They had kissed his (now slim) ass and agreed to pay him. As the years have gone on, he has since been attached to direct. The Hobbit will be split up into two films, so they’ll be charging audiences twice as much. It’s payback for not watching The Golden Compass, which although never explicitly named, is believed to have played a part in the downfall of the studio. In February 2008, it was revealed that New Line would shut down as a separate studio, but would continue to finance and market films as a part of their parent company, Warner Bros.
I viewed the film with my sister on a quiet Monday afternoon. We were both disappointed. I had not read the book, but I told my sister (who had) that given the unbelievably quick pace, it felt like watching a collection of best bits. She agreed with me. Part of that would be attributed to New Line taking over and having final cut. Weitz had unfortunately stumbled into a "damned if you do, damned if you don’t" scenario, being at odds with fans and the studio; who themselves were at odds with the Catholic church. In an interview with British newspaper The Times, Pullman said of the film, “A lot of things about it were good. Nothing can bring out all that's in the book. There are always compromises.”
Despite all the controversy, it’s not exactly an awful film, but it didn’t help that it wasn’t that good either. Reviews were mixed. The PG-13 rating (for fantasy violence), should have shown that the film is tailored more towards young teens, maybe putting off some parents looking for a family friendly film, though I personally don’t see what’s so PG-13 about it. Dakota Blue Richards, and Sam Elliot are the best things about the film. It also surprisingly won an Oscar and BAFTA for its visual effects. There may be a better director’s cut out there, but we probably won’t see that either.
Ultimately The Golden Compass upset the Christian right (most of whom didn’t see the film, they were just upset that it existed), and in trying to appease them, New Line Cinema recut the film for their benefit, and upset a number of fans in the process, including the film’s own director. In the end, no one was happy.