Who killed off The Golden Compass? | Philip Pullman
Film blogPhilip Pullman This article is more than 14 years oldWho killed off The Golden Compass?
This article is more than 14 years oldSam Elliot believes the Catholic church killed off any chances of a sequel to The Golden Compass, but the truth may be far simplerAfter the success of Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy looked a dead cert for epic fantasy book franchise success. In 2007, when first installment The Golden Compass was released, it looked to have all the right ingredients: moppet actors, spectacular battles, a sexy baddie, Ian McKellen, snow. But no sequels were made. Why?
Actor Sam Elliot thinks he knows. According to an interview in the Evening Standard, Elliot – who basically played himself in The Golden Compass – is pinning the failure of the series directly on the Pope, saying: "The Catholic church happened to The Golden Compass, as far as I'm concerned. It did incredible at the box office. Incredible. It took $85m (£52m) in the States. The Catholic church … lambasted them, and I think it scared New Line off."
He could have a point. The Golden Compass was the subject of a prolonged attack from the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, who proclaimed it to be "atheism for kids", and Fox News's Bill O'Reilly who, with typical restraint, apparently called the film a "war on Christmas". The attacks shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone. Pullman has always been impressively vocal in his atheism, plus writing a book about some children literally murdering God is probably as overt an anti-Catholic statement as you can get – but there's something about Elliot's argument that doesn't quite ring true.
The Catholic church hates a lot of things. The Vatican called the Twilight sequel New Moon "a moral vacuum with a deviant message", and that's only the second in a series. Cardinal Francis Arinze started huffing about legal action when The Da Vinci Code was released, and that got a sequel in which loads of Catholics run around on fire. The Pope said that Harry Potter would "corrupt the Christian faith" and that got seven sequels.
It's not just movies. Madonna spent much of her 2006 concerts writhing around in an age-inappropriate leotard strapped to a giant glittery crucifix, something that Cardinal Ersilio Tonini called "an act of open hostility", and that went on to become the highest-grossing female tour of all time. The Catholic church couldn't even stop a middle-aged lady in a horrible leotard singing about her holidays.
So maybe, just maybe, The Golden Compass wasn't given any sequels because it didn't deserve any. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a score of 42% – ranking it alongside such masterpieces as Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle – with reviewers calling it "bland", "patchy" and "a crushing disappointment". It looks as if people were too busy despairing at the film's long, impenetrable voiceovers about dust to notice that it was apparently waging a war on Christmas.
It's a little sad that Elliot has to blame a shadowy religious conspiracy for the failure of The Golden Compass, especially since he was just about the film's sole redeeming feature, but the truth is that not many of us could bear to sit through any more sequels if there was any chance they would be as ropey as the first film. Nice try, though.
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