Let’s journey back to the early 2000’s.  As the world was welcoming in the new millennium and all the highs and lows that would come, cinema was likewise going through it’s own period of transition.  The digital age was blooming to a point where there was limitless potential to what could be made real on the big screen.  And in the the early 2000’s, we saw the newest advances in visual effects help revive what had long been a dormant genre in cinema: Fantasy.  Though fantasy films were popular through the blockbuster 80’s, they more or less dissipated going into the 1990’s, which seemed to favor action films and epic dramas.  That was until 2001, when two film franchises made their debuts and brought the fantasy genre roaring back to life.  They were the Harry Potter franchise and The Lord of the Rings trilogy.  Both premiere films, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001) and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) were smash hits, and all but secured the continuation of their narratives in subsequent follow-ups.  But even more importantly, it reawakened Hollywood to the fact that there was indeed big business in the Fantasy genre that they had too long ignored.  Even more than their box office performance, Potter and Rings proved to be highly marketable franchises as well, boosting book sales of their respective source material, as well as creating a whole market for tie-in merchandise the likes that Hollywood hadn’t seen since Star Wars twenty years prior.  With all this huge business driven by these two valuable properties, other Hollywood studios became very interested in finding their own fantasy property that they could mine for all it’s worth.  Thus began a decade that saw a frenzy over bringing beloved fantasy literature to the big screen, all with the hope that it would bring the same kind of riches that Potter and Rings had found.  But, as many Hollywood studios would find out, it was gold rush that ultimately reaped very few rewards, and in turn, it created this shockingly high number of incomplete movie franchises that ended long before they could even begin.

This is the other thing that defined much of the cinema of the 2000’s; the abandonment of failed franchises.  For a lot of the studios chasing after new IP, they ultimately found that audiences had little interest in obscure tales that often felt too much like the bigger franchises that they were more fond of.  There were several fanchises in those years that were either a Harry Potter clone; like The Seeker (2007) or a Lord of the Rings clone like Eragon (2005).  Mainly the studios were taking in the wrong lessons from those popular franchises, believing that anything that followed the same plot points would lead to the same success.  What really set Potter and Rings apart was the fact that they had richly developed worlds, and were also in many ways uncharacteristic of Hollywood formula.  Reading The Lord of the Rings, you would almost think that it’s an un-filmable story.  Or that Harry Potter’s tonal shifts might be too much for younger audiences to take.  But, it took passionate filmmakers on both franchises to bring out the best of those books and make them work on the big screen.  Most of the failed franchises of the 2000’s lacked that passion.  They were made more out of a mandate than out of love for the source material.  There were some unexpected hits during this time, like Disney’s The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (2005), but even there you could feel the heavy influence of a studio mandate behind it.  Unlike Potter and Rings, many of these franchises, most of which were based on multi volume book series, ended up throwing in the towel after one failed film, which became even more awkward if that movie concluded on a cliffhanger.  And surprisingly, one of the worst offenders of this failed attempt at a new fantasy franchise was the same studio that brought The Lord of the Rings to the silver screen: New Line Cinema, with their catastrophically failed adaptation of The Golden Compass (2007)

The Golden Compass is the first in a three volume series of novels called His Dark Materials, written by English author Phillip Pullman.  Pullman published his trilogy over five years between 1995 and 2000, and won wide acclaim from the literary community.  What really set the novels apart in the fantasy genre was it’s very strong and pointed allegory.  Pullman, an unapologetic and outspoken athiest, made religious hypocrisy a central theme of his series, with the clash between faith and science being a crucial element in the narrative.  The His Dark Materials books have often been dubbed by some as “Narnia for Athiests,” which makes it surprising that any movie studio would take on the material, knowing that religious groups would possibly protest the movie upon it’s release.  It’s interesting that Pullman himself views the books as less fantasy and more as “stark realism,” but there is certainly a lot within the books that helps to characterize them as either fantasy or science fiction.  Talking animals that are the living manifestation of a person’s soul, witches, a kingdom of polar bears, and interdimensional travel.  There was certainly a lot of potential to mine from Pullman’s books.  Unfortunately, by the time Hollywood took notice of His Dark Materials as a potential franchise, it was very much beyond the point where studios cared less about doing right by the material and more about how much money they could make from it.  Not only that, but the His Dark Materials books fell into the hands of New Line Cinema, who at this point were embroiled in a series of controversies related to how they were handling the success of The Lord of the Rings.  Pete Jackson, the Oscar-winning director of Rings, quite rightly took notice of how inadequately New Line was dispersing the profits of The Lord of the Rings, especially with the final film, The Return of the King (2003).  Jackson soon took New Line Cinema to court to get the fair compensation for his company in New Zealand, which derailed plans from both parties to continue working on a possible adaptation of The Hobbit.  And that led to the interest in the Dark Materials series, as New Line decided to end partnership with Peter Jackson and Co. altogether, believing that they could make a hit franchise on their own without them.

What happened after with The Golden Compass is a text book example of studio hubris in action.  New Line Cinema not only intended to fill that Middle Earth sized hole with this new franchise; they intended to make it even bolder and grander.  The budget was estimated to be in the realm of $200 million, which was double the expense of just one of the Lord of the Rings movies, and almost 2/3 of the entire trilogy.  It would also feature an all star cast that included actors as diverse as Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Sam Elliott, Eva Green, and even Lord of the Rings alum like Ian McKellan and Christopher Lee.  And of course, there were millions poured into the movie’s extensive visual effects.  But, there was one problem.  Who do you get to steer the ship of this franchise.  New Line Cinema would end up bringing in Chris Weitz to write and direct the film; the co-creator of the American Pie (1999) series of movies.  Suffice to say, all the problems that followed could be stemmed back to this decision.  Weitz, while being a decent writer and a serviceable director, clearly was just a filmmaker for hire on this movie.  That made a big difference because you can tell he was just on board to do a job. This was not a grand artistic statement.  When Peter Jackson made The Lord of the Rings, it was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream, which you could tell from the years of planning that Jackson put into that project.  There is passion in every frame of The Lord of the Rings that is visibly absent in The Golden Compass.  Chris Weitz didn’t have years of connection with the material like Jackson had with Rings.  It’s clear that New Line Cinema just gave him the book to adapt with an enormous budget and he tried to deliver the best he could, but ultimately ended up being overwhelmed by the task.

First of all, what ultimately sinks the movie as a whole is that it rushes through it’s narrative in order to meet a theater friendly two hour runtime.  When adapting a dense, multi-layered world like the one in the Dark Materials books, it’s clearly not enough time establish what we need to know.  It becomes clear what you’re in for when the movie dumps a whole lot of exposition on you in just the first ten minutes.  You suddenly have to accept the knowledge that this world is an alternate reality Earth, where people have souls manifested into animal companions named daemons, many of whom are capable of speaking human language.  And the movie never lets the world-building rest and allow itself to immerse the audience.  It’s just a collection of beautiful but ultimately empty set pieces.  Besides the extra length to allow for better world-building, The Golden Compass also lacks the gateway for audiences to connect with the world that’s being portrayed on screen.  The best fantasy films all have that special element that helps the audience grow acquainted with the world it’s showing, and that’s usually giving them a grounded entryway that the rest of the movie can build upon.  Think of the early scenes in the Shire from The Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter’s pre-Hogwarts life living under the stairs in his Aunt and Uncle’s home, or Narnia’s WWII prologue.  Each of these moments helps us to relate to the world of those movies, before they begin to open up and show all the crazy wonders beyond those simple beginnings.  The Golden Compass doesn’t have that.  It just immediately drops us into an already alien world and hopes that we can catch on fast.  And with the rush to get from one plot point to another, it also excises some crucial things that would’ve help set the movie apart; in particular, it’s anti-theocratic allegory.  The removal of the novel’s harsher stance against organized religion is probably the clearest sign of this movie being driven by a studio and not a filmmaker, as New Line Cinema obviously did not want to push any buttons in fear it might alienate more religious movie goers.  But, in doing so, it also took the bite out of the source material, and left the movie without an identity other than just being another fantasy film.

The movie’s condensed run time also works as a disadvantage towards character development.  There are just far too many characters to get familiar with in such a short amount of time, that none of them end up endearing themselves to the audience.  The only character that comes close is the main heroine Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards), and she barely resonates beyond any other child protagonist from a dozen other fantasy narratives.  We only get to see how her adventurous side plays into her desire to go on the journey, but she grows very little throughout the narrative and ultimately, you care little about what she has to do because she’s not a terribly interesting character as a result.  And this is the best the movie can muster.  What the movie really wastes are it’s big name stars.  Nicole Kidman is a bland antagonist, with her persona reduced down to icy cold stares.  Daniel Craig, who was heavily promoted in his first post-debut as James Bond role, is only in the movie for maybe a total of 10 minutes, if that.  Only Sam Elliott stands out in the movie, and that might be because he’s the one American in this mostly British ensemble.  What I also find strange about the movie’s characters is that there are large chunks of the film where a whole group of them will just disapper for an extended period of time.  Perhaps it’s close to how the novel’s plot progresses, but to have the film just forget a bunch of characters as it chases a whole different plot thread just feels awkward.  This is evident at the end of the second act in the film when we suddenly shift to this whole different sub plot involving the polar bears.  Suddenly, we ditch the main story and follow this one of a Polar Bear prince named Iorek Byrnison (voiced by Ian McKellan) who seeks to reclaim his birthright from a usurper king (voiced by Ian McShane).  Now, truth be told, it does lead to the best and most memorable moment of the whole movie, when Iorek smacks the jaw off his rivals face in a shockingly violent and gory moment for a PG-13 film, but even still, it’s connection to the rest of the story is meaningless in the long run.  It’s that lack of cohesion in the narrative and the little investment in the characters’ motivations and desires that ultimately sinks any investment that the audience has with the movie.

But, probably the most notorious mistake that the movie makes is it’s cliffhanger ending.  Here is where the hubris of New Line Cinema’s petty one-up-manship against Peter Jackson becomes especially embarrassing.  New Line seemed so sure that they had a winner on their hands, that they believed the best way to end the movie was to leave it open-ended and unresolved, believing that audiences would be excited for the next chapter.  Suffice to say, they weren’t.  More accurately, they were confused and upset by this movie not closing on a satisfying note.  And cliffhanger is a stretch of the term in this case.  The Golden Compass book actually ends differently, with a moment that clearly fits the definition of a cliffhanger much better.  In the book, Lyra sees one of her companions betrayed and killed while a portal to another dimension is opened up, which she passes through in the book’s final moment.  The movie just has our characters traveling to their next destination talking to each other about what to expect next.  It’s horribly anti-climatic, especially when you know how the story really ends in the book.  I don’t know why New Line Cinema went for the more ambiguous ending instead of the more exciting one.  Were they looking at the more open-ended conclusions of the Rings films and thinking that they should repeat that formula?  Whatever the case, it’s a choice that ended up blowing back in New Line’s face, because there never was a follow-up to The Golden Compass.  The movie made only a third back of it’s original budget at the box office.  The significant financial blow began a continued downward spiral for the studio that saw many more financial failures that was only exacerbated by the continued legal dispute with Peter Jackson.  After a few more box office flops, the once mighty mini-major ended up seeing it’s independence wane as parent company Warner Brothers assumed more control, leading to the exit of the executives who initially greenlighted The Golden Compass.  And wouldn’t you know it, Warner Brothers settled the dispute with Peter Jackson and put into action the long delayed Hobbit adaptation that New Line was certain they could live without.  In the end, Golden Compass’ awkward, unresolved ending is probably the clearest example of a studio believing too much into it’s own hype and setting itself up for embarrassment.  It’s just too bad for those involved in the production, for the filmmakers and cast, that their work is just left hanging there awkwardly for eternity because of a studio’s poor attempt to build a franchise and hitting the brakes after one film.

I distinctly remember being excited for this film when it was originally released.  I wanted another Lord of the Rings franchise out there, just out of my love for extensive and imaginative world-building, and The Golden Compass had all the makings of a fantasy film perfectly suited to fill that vacancy.  Unfortunately, because it lacked the heart of other great fantasy films, and was clearly just an attempt by a major studio to chase after a fad and show another filmmaker who’s the boss, it ultimately fell flat.  I think it’s just the pettiness behind it’s making, as a way of New Line to turn up it’s nose at Peter Jackson, that makes it such an unpleasant relic of that period in fantasy filmmaking.  And even more egregious, it wasted good source material as a result.  Thankfully, many years later, Warner Brothers saw the potential in Phillip Pullman’s novels and decided to take another chance on this story again.  Only this time, instead of limiting the narrative to a short theater friendly run time, they gave it a 10 episode series order.  The His Dark Materials series, made in collaboration with BBC Studios, has aired on HBO here in the states, and by all accounts does better justice to the novels, particularly when it comes to characterizations and plot.  It also succeeded in going past the original film’s end point and has been able to adapt the other two books in the trilogy as well, with a final third season premiering later this year.  That’s a whole lot better than having the story forever sit unfinished like the movie did.  In the end, of all the failed attempts to start-up new fantasy franchises in the 2000’s, The Golden Compass probably stands out the most as the biggest blunder of them all.  It’s substantial cost ended up burdening a studio that saw a meteoric rise and in the end cost them their autonomy as their parent company assumed more control.  And the fact that New Line Cinema banked so much of their certainty in the success of the film that they didn’t even bother to give the movie a proper ending just caused the film to become a punchline rather than a fantasy epic that helped to define a genre.  It’s movies like this that ultimately tanked the resurgence of fantasy films, which ended up slipping back into dormancy as comic book movies would dominate the following decade.  If The Golden Compass offers up anything, it’s a cautionary tale of the folly of petty one-up-manship in Hollywood, and trying to chase after success without heart and devotion put into the work.  New Line Cinema tried to count all the chickens before they hatched and The Golden Compass became the rotten egg that defined it’s reputation for many years after.