His Dark Materials season 3 is just around the corner, soon to bring the BBC and HBO adaptation of an iconic book series to a close. His Dark Materials has been largely lauded for being a faithful adaptation of the book trilogy of the same name by Phillip Pullman, successfully weaving through worlds and translating Pullman's sprawling and subtle narratives alike from page to screen. After a two-year break and a global pandemic, His Dark Materials season 3 looks set to bring the series to a close in a satisfying and exciting way.
The sprawling multiversal storyline of His Dark Materials grows even larger in season 3, with new worlds visited and new species introduced. One such species is the Mulefa, a favorite from Phillip Pullman's third His Dark Materials novel, The Amber Spyglass. Between creating new sets, finding new locations, and bringing new concepts into the fold, the creative minds behind the series such as producers Jane Tranter and Dan McCulloch certainly had heavy lifting to do for season 3.
Screen Rant spoke to Tranter and McCulloch about bringing Phillip Pullman's world to life for one final season.
His Dark Materials Producers on Season 3
Screen Rant: It's been two years since the second season of the show aired. Obviously, there have been some global challenges, but was there ever a moment where you were afraid that the third season was not going to happen?
Jane Tranter: No, I think we'd always planned to have a bigger gap between season two and season three to let our two young leads grow to an age where they could tackle the full storyline of season three. They just needed to be that bit older, and we were keen - we liked that Lyra aged between season one to season two, and then again, a bigger leap to season three. I've always felt that one of the things that gave a sort of wonderful stickiness for an audience to Game of Thrones was being able to see those young Stark kids grow up, and I think watching Lyra and Will grow up has been an important part of that process.
But I always felt that we were just determined that His Dark Materials was going to come back, you know, no matter what. In COVID, we were one of the production companies that started filming very early on with A Discovery of Witches, and by the time we'd worked our way through that, it was the time that we'd always planned that we were going to production on His Dark Materials. And we did. And huge thanks to all the cast and crew for holding with us through all of that.
Sure. And were there ever conversations about trying to pull any additional material into a fourth season, or splitting The Amber Spyglass into two seasons, or any of those other things that are kind of common with book adaptations these days?
Jane Tranter: I'll just answer this one very quickly. So I did say in San Diego Comic-Con - I think it was in 2019 - in a heady rush of glory in season one going out, that The Subtle Knife I knew could only be one season's worth, because it's just a smaller book than the first or the third, but the third was huge and that maybe we needed two seasons for that. And actually, then, when we came to sort of look at it properly, having kind of got over that heady first rush, and think, "Alright, how are we going to tackle this adaptation?" it was clear it was only one season.
I also think that there has been probably a bit of a trend for extending material further than the material should be extended. Whilst there are definitely elements of The Amber Spyglass that we hadn't had time to do, like for example spend more time with Mary Malone and Atal in the world of the Mulefa, I actually think we did manage to essentially do everything that we needed to do. It felt the right shape in the end. You need to leave people wanting more, not kind of like, "Oh, this is going on a bit too long."
Yeah, absolutely. And you just touched on this, but I read these books as a kid, and my favorite thing from the whole series was the Mulefa. That's what stuck with me throughout the years. Can you talk about the process of bringing them to life for this season?
Dan McCulloch: Yeah, of course. As we were kind of marching through season one and two - season one and two were made before anybody had seen season one - the thing that we would almost kind of tease ourselves about is, "What are you going to do with the kind of diamond structures? [The] trunk creatures that ride on nuts, what are you going to do with that?" It was like, "If you think two bears fighting is hard, wait until you get to the mulefa!" It was this constant joke throughout, to the point where I think Jane mentioned it at the premiere of season one.
In our early discussions with Pullman - and this is power to Phillip. This is that thing that only authors can have, where you've got an absolute objectivity. When you've got lots of people running around trying to make lots of different things, and worrying about the size of intention craft, and those kind of practical elements... Pullman laid down quite early on, [that] a red line for him almost was the mulefa. Their existence, their symbiosis with nature, their ability to communicate with Mary, and the fact that they're these kind of wiser beings was kind of essential to him in ways that we didn't fully understand, I think, until now.
But to have those first images get out there, to have them go down so well, and [to have] so many people talk about the idea that perhaps we might have seen something in someone's head and shared something, I kind of feel it shows how in tune the people are who are working on the show. This wasn't easy, but it became easy to add because we've been existing and living and breathing His Dark Materials for so long. By the time it came to language construction, by the time it came to physical performance by a person playing a mulefa, by the time it came to an actor playing the voice - who we have yet to announce, but we will be soon - and when it came to Simone's interaction... Mary Malone had only ever been in her world. By the time all those confluence things came together, I really believe we were full-on orchestra ability when it came to program making.
I think we've delivered. I hope we've delivered. They do everything they say that they do in the books, and they really do, I think, present the deeper, more meaningful themes of Dark Materials, and the different worlds, and their existence, and the extremes of perfection with nature and harmony and wisdom, compared to the Magisterium back in Lyra's world. The kind of opposite in thinking.
Something that I also especially love about the series is that no matter what kind of world we're in, the locations are so beautiful. There's one in season three, a house by the sea, that I think is just absolutely gorgeous. What's the process like of determining when you're building a set, when you're scouting for a location, or when you're just creating something in a studio?
Jane Tranter: Probably without exception, everything has a set element to it. So, that place by the sea, we actually built the interior of that in the studio, and then went to film that exterior. I think it was modeled on two places in the end, actually. I think we took an exterior and then put it into an environment effects shot as well. Even the mulefa world is, some of it is set, and some of it is on location in Spain. The way we looked at that was to try and get enough that was in a studio so that we would be able to get through all the material that we were able to get through in a studio environment; to control how we were going to put the effects in, but [also] to give the actors a real solid base so we just weren't putting everyone into an LED stage or just against a green screen all the time. [We do this] so they have real soil beneath their feet, but at the same time to place our sets in the real world. Whilst our adaptation of His Dark Materials is fantasy, it's very grounded fantasy, and we were constantly wanting an audience to compare it to what they know.
Now that the show is coming to an end, what has been your favorite part of adapting the series?
Dan McCulloch: There are so many bits to adapt in this show, it's impossible to pick one thing. The only thing I can say is just the journey. The learning, the experience, the people that you've met, and the collaboration with the artists, from the writers, to the actors, to the puppeteers, to the VFX animators. This show has been incredibly far-reaching within our industry, and has had real impact and definition about how to do shows on this scale. We learned that from the very beginning, from working with what is now seen as quite possibly rudimentary thinking about how you make TV, to now the very height of sophistication with that last episode that you've just seen. That was only finished a few weeks ago. In one weekend, we had eight hundred man-days spent on just that one episode. [It was] a huge push by our digital artists to get that ready and on time, and that was such an incredible feat. For that to happen right at the end of everything else was just this most incredible feeling of groundbreaking effort from so many people who want to make the book, and do it justice, and to bring fans and bring a new audience to the world of Dark Materials.
Jane Tranter: I've never seen an actor put a character together in the way that Ruth Wilson put Mrs. Coulter together. That combination of costume, makeup, working with Brian (Fisher) the puppeteer with the golden monkey, physically changing herself for the role, and then digging into the character. And how she lands the sort of authenticity behind the fantasy. I mean, the whole putting together of that was a piece of artwork in and of itself.
About His Dark Materials Season 3
Season 3 opens with Lyra unconscious, having been given a sleeping draught by her mother, as Will, still carrying the Subtle Knife, continues his quest to find her. Will is tracked down by two angels — Balthamos and Baruch — who wish to take him to join Lord Asriel’s campaign against The Authority with Commander Ogunwe. But Will is not the only one after Lyra, with Father President MacPhail continuing his mission to destroy the child of the prophecy, employing the help of his most committed follower, Father Gomez.
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His Dark Materials season 3 premieres December 5th on HBO and HBO Max.