The HBO show His Dark Materials came to an end earlier this week. An adaptation of Philip Pullman’s popular fantasy novels, the series sometimes struggled to stay interesting while juggling the heady concepts from Pullman’s books with the adventure story of Lyra Belacqua and Will Parry, but it ended on a high note. And that has folks wondering: could there be more?
Amir Wilson, who played Will, talked to Digital Spy about the possibility. “When I signed on, it was with the ‘option to do more seasons’ kind of thing,” he said. “But obviously when I came, they’d already decided to do a season 2. They’d probably known that they were going to do three seasons and kind of leave it at that. Three seasons, three books – it kind of made sense.”
Indeed, Pullman wrote three His Dark Materials books and now there are three seasons…however, Pullman is currently at work on a second trilogy called The Book of Dust. The first book, La Belle Sauvage, depicts events that happened prior to the original story. The second, The Secret Commonwealth, follows a grown-up Lyra going on a new adventure. And the third book has yet to be written.
Will HBO make His Dark Materials season 4?
Together, this new trilogy is called The Book of Dust. Might the folks behind the HBO show want to adapt that? Speaking at a Q&A event ahead of the launch of the final season, producer Jane Tranter seemed to.
“As Philip Pullman calls it, there is an ‘equal’ which is La Belle Sauvage and then there’s a sequel, which is The Secret Commonwealth,” Tranter said, per Radio Times. “And I have made absolutely no secret of the fact that I am really very keen to do The Book of Dust and Philip has already said that he would love us to do it. But he needs to finish the third book.”
"We would love to do that, but you need to go out and ring the bell very loudly for that as well, so we can get the combined might of HBO and the BBC to say it’s an absolute done deal.They are very keen on this third season and the overall benefit that His Dark Materials has given them – it has done very well for the BBC on iPlayer… and the same for HBO Max as well."
The third season was definitely the best of the original His Dark Materials show. And maybe the more mature tone of The Book of Dust would be a better fit for Tranter and co, who often struggled to make this story about a couple of kids going on a magical adventure feel appropriately wondrous and exciting.
But we don’t know anything for sure yet. For now, you can watch all three seasons of His Dark Materials on HBO Max.
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