New TV series to bring A-list cast to Cardiff
A BIG budget television adaptation of His Dark Materials is coming to Wales – as are its Hollywood cast.
Scottish actor James McAvoy has been cast as Lord Asriel in the TV series based on the trilogy of books by Philip Pullman.
And American actor Clarke Peters, best known for his role in The Wire and the Oscar-winning Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, will be playing The Master, a role that has been expanded from the books for the screen adaption.
The TV series is being produced by Bad Wolf and will be shot at the Wolf Studios Wales in Cardiff Bay as well as locations around Wales.
McAvoy, who has played Charles Xavier in a number of the X-Men films, has already been sampling life in Cardiff as he attended the Jay Z and Beyonce concert at the Principality Stadium on Thursday night.
Peters, an actor, singer, writer and director, has lived in the UK since the early 1970s. However it was through the Baltimore-based TV series The Wire, which ran for five seasons between 2002 to 2008, that he became more widely known.
McAvoy and Peters will be joining Logan star Dafne Keen, who has been cast in the lead role of Lyra, and Hamilton creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda who will play Lee Scoresby.
His Dark Materials is made up of three books – Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass – but it is not yet known how many series the adaption will be. Work on the first season, which will have eight episodes, will start later this month.
The books follow the character of Lyra as she travels through parallel universes, where she meets armoured bears and witches as she tries to understand a mysterious phenomenon called Dust.
The series will be directed by Oscarwinner Tom Hooper, who directed The King’s Speech, and has been adapted by Jack Thorne, who written for TV shows Skins, Shameless and This is England.
Bad Wolf, collaborating with Sky, recently finished the production of another TV adaption set in a fantasy world.
The Cardiff studio filmed the TV series A Discovery of Witches. adapted from Deborah Harkness’ best-selling novel, set in a world that humans share with witches, vampires and daemons.
The drama, starring Theresa Palmer and Matthew Goode, will be shown on Sky One later this year.
Bad Wolf was set up by Jane Tranter and Julie Gardner in 2015 with support from the Welsh Government.
They both had previously worked at the BBC and were responsible for huge successes including Doctor Who, Torchwood and Da Vinci’s Demons, all of which were filmed in Wales.
In May last year they opened Wolf Studios Wales, a 250,000sq ft studio and office scheme at Trident Park, in Cardiff Bay.
The site was acquired by the Welsh Government and is being leased – based on an initial 10-year term – on commercial terms to provide studio facilities for Bad Wolf’s production slate as well as being able to accommodate other major TV productions.
The studio is the site of the former Nippon Glass factory and has seven studios.