The Golden Compass is a forthcoming fantasy film based upon Northern Lights (titled The Golden Compass in the US), the first novel in Philip Pullman's trilogy His Dark Materials, slated for release on December 5, 2007 by New Line Cinema.
The story concerns Lyra, an orphan living in a fantastical parallel universe in which a dogmatic dictatorship, the Magisterium, threatens to dominate. The project was announced in February 2002, following the success of other recent adaptations of fantasy epics, and at $150 million is expected to be one of New Line's biggest budget project ever after a series of box office disappointments in the past year.
Plot Synopsis:
It was no ordinary life for a young girl: living among scholars in the hallowed halls of Jordan College and tearing unsupervised through Oxford's motley streets on mad quests for adventure. But Lyra's greatest adventure would begin closer to home, the day she heard hushed talk of an extraordinary particle.
Microscopic in size, the magical dust- found only in the vast Artic expanse of the North -was rumored to possess profound properties that could unite whole universes. But there were those who feared the particle and would stop at nothing to destroy it. Catapulted into the heart of a terrible struggle, Lyra was forced to seek aid from clans, gyptians, and formidable armored bears.
And as she journeyed into unbelievable danger, she had not the faintest clue that she alone was destined to win, or to lose, this more-than-mortal battle...
