His Dark Materials

Leonardo da Vinci's Lady with an Ermine (1489–90) was one of Pullman's inspirations for his dæmons

The BBC released a teaser video for its upcoming adaptation of Philip Pullman’s fantasy trilogy, His Dark Materials. I haven't seen any post about when the series will premiere and I'm sure that it will be in the UK on BBC One before I get to see it on BBC America, though I heard Apple and Netflix might run it here.

His Dark Materials is Philip Pullman’s trilogy of the novels The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. The series will be directed by Tom Hooper and star (so far) Tyler Howitt, Dafne Keen, James McAvoy, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Ruth Wilson.

The trilogy is the coming-of-age story of two children discovering their identities and destinies while journeying through parallel universes. Their alternate world is one where people are accompanied by manifestations of their souls. These manifestations are shapeshifting animals called daemons.

Lyra and Will are two ordinary children moving through these otherworlds with witches and armored bears, fallen angels and soul-eating specters. As with other trilogies, the stakes are high: the fate of both the living and the dead will rely on them.

That brief description makes His Dark Materials sound like a series for children or young adults. I would have been attracted to it at that age, but I read it as an adult and (lso like some other trilogies) there are parts that will fly over that young audience's heads.

Pullman uses concepts from physics, philosophy and theology and a strong criticism of religion. Some people compare parts of it to an inverted Paradise Lost. The title of the series comes from poet John Milton's Paradise Lost.

Jesus as geometer in a 13th-century medieval illuminated manuscript

Into this wilde Abyss,
The Womb of nature and perhaps her Grave,
Of neither Sea, nor Shore, nor Air, nor Fire,
But all these in their pregnant causes mixt
Confus'dly, and which thus must ever fight,
Unless th' Almighty Maker them ordain
His dark materials to create more Worlds,
Into this wilde Abyss the warie fiend
Stood on the brink of Hell and look'd a while,
Pondering his Voyage; for no narrow frith
He had to cross.
(Book 2, lines 910–920)

God as architect, wielding the golden compasses by William Blake

An early name for the series was The Golden Compasses, which is also an allusion to Paradise Lost. The golden compass is what God uses as a drawing instrument to establish and set the bounds of all creation.

Then staid the fervid wheels, and in his hand
He took the golden compasses, prepared
In God's eternal store, to circumscribe
This universe, and all created things:
One foot he centered, and the other turned
Round through the vast profundity obscure
(Book 7, lines 224–229)

This teaser shows the girl Lyra and other characters - but no daemons. There is a flash of a most magical item in the story: the alethiometer.

The trilogy was going to be adapted for film back in 2005, but the first installment, The Golden Compass didn't do well even though it starred Nicole Kidman, Ian McKellen and Ian McShane. The second and third novels - The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass - were never adapted, so the television series has new ground to cover.