Over a dozen years ago, fans of Philip Pullman’s three-part His Dark Materials series were met with great disappointment, when the blockbuster movie adaptation that was supposed to launch a franchise — The Golden Compass, featuring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig — never made it past book one. That left fans, as well the film’s child hero Lyra, hanging. Second time’s the charm, though: Pullman’s books proved a better fit as prestige television, and the trailer for its second season shows HBO doing what a traditional Hollywood studio did not.
The HDM trailer was one of many to debut at this year’s at-home Comic-Con, and it shows Lyra, the boarding school-raised adventurer played by Logan’s Dafne Keen, and her weasel daemon as they step foot in Cittàgazze, a mysterious abandoned city where she befriends a boy, Amir Wilson’s Will, who’s also left his home world. We see some old faces, among them baddie Mrs. Coulter (Ruth Wilson) and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s balloonist Lee Scoresby.
One character you won’t see again is James McAvoy’s villainous Lord Asriel, who was responsible for Lyra entering Cittàgazze in the first place. For that you can blame the coronavirus: As per Deadline, McAvoy was scheduled to appear in a single standalone episode centered on his character, in a story that does not feature in the book it’s based on, The Subtle Knife. Alas, they were one day into shooting when the United Kingdom officially went into lockdown.
Fortunately, everything the show needed for the rest of the season was in the bag, though that does mean Season 2 will be seven episodes and not eight, as planned. On the plus side, the next season introduces explorer and good guy John Parry, played by Andrew Scott, and Fleabag‘s “Hot Priest” is always welcome.
You can watch the full panel below, and though no premiere date has yet been made, it’s believed Season 2 will bow in the fall.
(Via Deadline)