The wait for the His Dark Materials TV show is nearly over after a long wait since the HBO and BBC One adaptation was first announced in 2015.
But, speaking to Digital Spy and other outlets at the show’s press conference, executive producer Jane Tranter revealed that one of the reasons it’s taken so long for Philip Pullman’s series to make it to the small screen is that Game of Thrones had to happen first.
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“I am a great believer that the timing often is right when it’s right,” Tranter said. “Really, if I’d had made these books in the early 2000s for the BBC, it would have been television puppets. It would have been a disaster.
“And I really had to wait for television to go epic, and for Game of Thrones to happen, and for myself to be working in Los Angeles for eight years, and to really see how you could build a large-scale television show.”
And once Tranter knew the time was right to make the show she had to secure the rights. “I then came back, and finally Philip [Pullman] and New Line gave up,” she continued.
“I think I bored them into submission, and they gave me the rights. And we started. For everyone, it’s been a passion project.”
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Related: His Dark Materials executive producer explains why seasons one and two were filmed so close together
But while Game of Thrones helped the His Dark Materials series come into existence, according to Tranter, they’re in a ‘totally different place’ in TV Venn diagram.
“Game of Thrones was the sort of key in a way that I think unlocked television of a certain scale, and I think we benefited from that,” Tranter continued.
“And I think that we are grateful to Game of Thrones, rather than being in its shadow.”
“His Dark Materials is so distinctly and uniquely its own piece. Game of Thrones is not something, as Philip Pullman would say, that adults can watch and is made for adults, which children could and should watch. And His Dark Materials is,” she added.
“It’s in a totally different place in the Venn diagram for television, I feel. So I’m not daunted by that.”
His Dark Materials premieres on BBC One in the UK on Sunday, November 3 and on HBO in the US on Monday, November 4.
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