"His Dark Materials" season 2 is gearing up for more work on the set. The cast and crew led by "Logan" teenager Dafne Keen should be back on location start principal photography this summer.
According to KFTV, the cameras will once again roll for "His Dark Materials" season 2 in Wales. Bad Wolf and New Line Cinema have obtained permission to film the series at Cardiff's Wolf Studios Wales. Apparently, this is also where the Bad Wolf filmed the first season and its other TV show, "A Discovery of Witches."
Earlier, Bad Wolf TV posted a job opening for a script editor for season 2. This indicated that work on the second season is slowly taking place after the cast and crew wrapped up production of the first season in December 2018.
According to Variety, "His Dark Materials" season 2 will also consist of eight episodes like the first season. However, the production outfit has not yet released any teasers for the series nor has the debut date been set on BBC and HBO.
But "His Dark Materials" co-star Lin-Manuel Miranda told Variety that HBO might air the first season at the end of 2019. Miranda will play Lee Scoresby, the aeronautics expert who helps Lyra (Keen) get to Svalbard.
The show is based on Philip Pullman's bestselling books under the young adult fantasy genre. Pullman published "The Northern Lights" in 1995, also known as "The Golden Compass" in the U.S.", and then followed it up with "The Subtle Knife" in 1997 and "The Amber Spyglass in 2000.
New Line Cinema actually produced a movie based on "His Dark Materials" with the release of "The Golden Compass" in 2007. The film starred Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra, Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Coulter and Daniel Craig as Lord Asriel. However, "The Golden Compass" failed to reap domestic box office success so plans for sequels did not push through.
Meanwhile, the TV iteration of "His Dark Materials" will have James McAvoy ("Glass") as Lord Asriel. Ruth Wilson ("The Affair") has been cast as Mrs. Coulter. Also joining the show are Anne-Marie Duff, Geoff Bell, Georgina Campbell, Richard Cunningham, James Cosmo, Ian Peck, Tyler Howitt, Nabil Elouahabi and Ariyon Bakare. Tom Hooper, Otto Bathurst and Dawn Shadforth have directed at least two episodes each for the first season from a script written by Jack Thorne.
BBC executive Tony Hall revealed that cost of making this fantasy series is quite ambitious. But he fought for the show to get made since Pullman's trilogy was the type of material that could work best on BBC rather than streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon.
