With the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis bringing production on most films and television series to a standstill, many upcoming releases have been pushed back — and fans are expecting delays for the few that, so far, have remained unchanged. Luckily, fans of His Dark Materials fans can rest easy: The second season of the HBO’s adaptation of Philip Pullman’s novels appears to be unaffected by the pandemic, and the creative team behind the show seems confident that it will stay that way.
In fact, during a Twitter Q&A session about His Dark Materials, executive producer Jane Tranter confirmed that the show is already in post-production for its second season (most of which was filmed last year). Furthermore, Tranter confidently asserted that the second season “will be on the air before the end of the year” — so at least we’ll have something to look forward to amidst all the delays.
Post-production is continuing with characteristic intensity and energy, but now filtered down over BlueJeans. But rest assured, season 2 is coming and will be on air before the end of the year! #askHDM https://t.co/vKP4Wei9E3
— Jane Tranter (@janetranter1) April 26, 2020
The first season of His Dark Materials adapted the first book in Pullman’s series, The Northern Lights. Next up, we’ll get an adaptation Season two of His Dark Materials is based off the second book in Pullman’s series, The Subtle Knife. It’ll follow both Lyra (Dafne Keen) and Will (Amir Wilson) as they travel to new worlds — a journey we briefly saw the two begin during the season 1 finale. According to Wilson, the second season will take the story to new, darker places.
His Dark Materials is one of the lucky series that had most of the work on its second season completed before stay-at-home and shelter-in-place orders started cropping up worldwide. Others — like Marvel’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier — didn’t fare as well, and fans could see some changes in premiere dates due to the disruption. Still, it’s good to know that, with some series wrapping production at home, the fall television season won’t be a complete bust — it’ll just be a little smaller than what we’re used to.
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