Brandon Sanderson has often spoken about what makes a fantasy adaptation succeed or fail, especially when translating complex novels to film. In a SanderFAQ video on his channel, he talked about the critical failure of 2007’s The Golden Compass:
I’ve always noticed that certain adaptations that tried too hard to be beat by beat what the book was doing ended up failing. A famous failure is The Golden Compass. The Golden Compass is not a good film, but it is an interesting failure of a film.
The author acknowledged that the people behind the movie were passionate about the source material. Even the actors were perfectly cast, and the essential worldbuilding was incorporated. This ardent passion and desire to strictly stick to the book was, unfortunately, what killed the franchise.
When I watched it, it was really interesting to me because the way I think it failed was in trying to get so much of the book into the film that they essentially had to stop showing and start telling, because telling people things is much easier.
Sanderson also noted that the studio attempted to keep the film too short, at just 1 hour and 53 minutes. For an epic fantasy like The Golden Compass, that runtime left little room to develop its world, characters, and themes properly.
Why The Golden Compass Movie Trilogy Never Happened
The Golden Compass was originally planned as the first installment in a trilogy adapting Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials. The idea was to continue the story across two more films, covering the full arc of Lyra’s journey.
However, despite strong international box office performance, the movie underperformed in the United States and received mixed critical reactions, which raised concerns about its profitability. As a result, the planned sequels were put on hold and eventually canceled by New Line Cinema.
The movie was plagued by several controversies apart from what Sanderson stated above. Religion was one of the biggest issues as the film explicitly avoided mentioning it despite being a core part of the books, much to fans’ dismay.
However, groups like the Catholic League called for a boycott of the film, claiming the story’s objective is to “bash Christianity and promote atheism to kids,” via Fox News.
Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn Will Avoid The Golden Compass Errors
Brandon Sanderson / Credits: @BrandSanderson on YouTube
The Golden Compass has often been cited as an example of what modern fantasy adaptations should—and shouldn’t—do. With Sanderson writing and producing the upcoming Mistborn film, he has drawn lessons from where the adaptation went wrong. In the same SanderFAQ video above, he shared:
But the movie needs to know what it’s telling. And this movie is telling Vin’s story. And so, I want to reframe all of that for a tighter narrative looking at her story. But what I found is I can take almost every scene from the book, and I can bring them in and use them in some way.
So, what makes a good adaptation? Sanderson argues that the key is to keep to the soul of the story and not throw anything away from the original without good reason.
Indeed, adaptations work best when they balance respect for the source material with the demands of a different medium, rather than trying to copy every detail or reinvent everything completely.
Movie:The Golden CompassDirector:Chris WeitzDistributor:New Line CinemaRelease Date:December 7, 2007Rotten Tomatoes:42% | 51%
What are your thoughts on The Golden Compass? Let us know in the comments!
The Golden Compass is currently available to watch on Prime Video.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
