On an alternate retrofuturistic Earth ruled by the Magisterium, every person's soul exists outside the body as an animal companion, a dæmon.
Lyra Belacqua is an orphan raised at Jordan College… See more

• Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Coulter, an influential woman who takes an interest in Lyra (and later admits that she is Lyra's mother). Kidman was author Philip Pullman's preferred choice for the role ten years before prod… See more

On February 11, 2002, following the success of New Line's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the studio bought the rights to Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. In July 2003, Tom Stoppard was … See more

Numerous scenes from the novel did not feature in the film or were markedly changed. On December 7, 2007, New York magazine reviewed draft scripts from both Stoppard and Weitz; both were significantly longer tha… See more