Like a lot of people I’d assumed that The Golden Compass wasn’t getting a sequel because it wasn’t, well, particularly good. But despite it’s mediocre nature the movie actually did make a lot of money, more than enough to justify making another movie and continuing the saga of Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy. But it’ll never happen and according to Golden Compass star Sam Eilliot, the Catholic Church is to blame.
Talking to the Evening Standard when asked what happened to the movies that were supposed to be made out of the next two “His Dark Materials” books, Sam had this to say: “The Catholic Church happened to The Golden Compass, as far as I'm concerned. It did 'incredible' at the box office, taking $380million. Incredible. It took $85million in the States. The Catholic Church ... lambasted them, and I think it scared New Line off.”
When the Golden Compass was released the Catholic Church organized a boycott and Bill O’Reilly pronounced the movie a war on Christmas. But Golden Compass was based only on the first book of the His Dark Materials trilogy and it is by far, the most mild. It was made even more mild by the time it made it to movie screens, after Hollywood stripped out most of the anti-religion references scattered throughout the novel. That kind of sanitization would have been impossible when adapting later books, as the series quite literally turns into the story of gay angels trying to kill god.
The Catholic League’s Bill Donohue, who organized the boycott, has is more than happy to take credit for the franchise’s demise. He says, “The reason I protested was the deceitful attempt to introduce Christian children to the wonders of atheism in a backdoor fashion at Christmas time. Everyone agrees the film version was not anti-Catholic, but that hardly resolves the issue. The fact is that each volume in the trilogy becomes increasingly anti-Catholic.” Bill could use a dictionary, since Atheists don’t believe God exists or has ever existed while in the books God definitely exists, it’s just that everyone wants him dead.
