When is His Dark Materials out?

The release date of His Dark Materials will be Monday, November 4 at 9 p.m. on HBO, with episodes airing in the U.S. the day after they premiere on the BBC in the U.K. Following the premiere, the remaining seven episodes will air weekly on Mondays.

After airing, episodes will available to watch online, with each instalment coming to HBO Go and HBO Now shortly after airing on TV. For those who also want to watch the film version of the first book of the His Dark Materials trilogy The Golden Compass, it is streaming now in the U.S. on IMDB TV.

After the first eight episodes, which tell the story of first novel The Golden Compass (known as Northern Lights in some territories), we will be getting more episodes next year, with Season 2 based on The Subtle Knife filming now.

Who is in the cast of His Dark Materials?

The HBO series is led by Dafne Keen, who made her breakout in the 2017 movie Logan, as the show’s inquisitive hero Lyra Belacqua. Among the a-listers joining her are fellow X-Men alum James MacAvoy (playing Lyra’s mysterious adventurous uncle Lord Asriel) and Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda as hot air balloonist Lee Scoresby.

Joining them in His Dark Materials are The Affair and Luther star Ruth Wilson as Marisa Coulter, who becomes Lyra’s guardian in the first episode of the series. Other key roles are Shameless U.K. star Anne-Marie Duff as Ma Costa, whose son Billy goes missing and The Wire’s Clarke Peters playing Master of Jordan College Dr. Carne.

What will happen in His Dark Materials?

The official HBO synopsis reads: “The series follows Lyra (Dafne Keen), a seemingly ordinary but brave young woman from another world. Her search for a kidnapped friend uncovers a sinister plot involving stolen children and becomes a quest to understand a mysterious phenomenon called Dust.”

Speaking to Newsweek, McAvoy said of the series: “It’s a hugely captivating story about a little girl trying to find her parents, trying to connect with the parents. But at the same time, it’s also a story about the nullification of human imagination and the struggle between those trying to reclaim our right to think and to imagine and to project and to explore and those trying to shut that down.”

Is there a trailer for His Dark Materials?

The promo for the series, released in October, revealed that alongside these dense themes the series would also be fairly action-packed, with all the balloon chases, armored bears fights and epic landscapes of the book brought to the screen.

His Dark Materials airs Mondays at 9 p.m. on HBO