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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.

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