#His Dark Materials Season 3 is Already in the Works – /Film

His Dark Materials has yet to debut its sophomore season, but the team behind the epic fantasy-adventure series is already hard at work on season 3. Executive producer Joel Collins teased that His Dark Materials season 3 is already in the works, and seeing as it adapts the most ambitious and lavish book of Philip Pullman’s trilogy, they’re going to need all the time they can get.

HBO and BBC have yet to greenlight the third season of His Dark Materials, but the team behind the fantasy-adventure series are already getting to work on it. In an interview with Radio Times, Collins teased that the team has gotten to work “trying to solve the puzzle” of His Dark Materials season 3, which adapts the events of The Amber Spyglass, the third book in Pullman’s acclaimed fantasy trilogy:

“The world of season three is exceedingly weird and complicated. The complexity is stepped up in terms of the story, the visuals and the narrative. There’s very few of us in a very secret group doing early work, which is exciting and complex. We’re trying to solve the puzzle away from all the eyes and the noise. And it’s that kind of really precious time you get before hundreds of people start asking questions.”

The Amber Spyglass will probably be the most difficult book to adapt for the team led by writer Jack Thorne and executive producer Jane Tranter. Not only is it the most ambitious and will require some expensive production design to create the new worlds (including Lyra and Will’s descent into hell), it’s probably the least cinematic. There are long stretches of the book dedicated to a character getting to know a world entirely populated by non-humanoid creatures called the Mulefa, who don’t speak verbally. I can’t imagine how difficult that would be to translate to the screen, which Collins acknowledges.

“It’s all complicated, but I utterly have an idea of the Mulefa and what their world is, Asriel’s Republic is an amazing place,” Collins said. “We obviously go to the land of the dead, and what an exciting thing to think about and journey through. It’s literally a huge, complicated and brilliantly fun puzzle.”

The series so far has had its eye on this epic climax of the series, which involves a worlds-shattering heavenly war — most of which happens entirely offscreen in Pullman’s book, which is dedicated mostly to Lyra and Will’s story. But the show thus far has been taking steps to make the story as epic and grand as possible, sometimes to the detriment of the small character moments that made the books so appealing. I can’t say I totally trust Thorne to pull it off, but seeing as this epic latter half of the story has been his focus all along, I can only hope he will succeed.

His Dark Materials season 2 will debut on BBC on November 8 followed by a Stateside debut on HBO and HBO Max on November 16, 2020.

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