It's not going to be released for almost a year, but I'm already a bit cautious about the upcoming movie adaptation of the first part of Phillip Pullman's fantastic His Dark Materials trilogy. The first bad sign was that the movies were to drop the controversial religious elements entirely, scared that the negative press from religious groups would get in the way of potentially huge profits from a Harry Potter size audience (although it never did The Da Vinci Code any harm). The latest is that the movie will not be called Northern Lights (the name of the first book) but the much simpler The Golden Compass. This is worringly remeniscent of the first Harry Potter flick when the name was dunmbed down from Philosopher's Stone to Sorcerer's Stone for the US audience. My American readers: I know you are not idiots (you have great taste in websites for a start!) so why must the studios treat you like you are? Hopefully the brilliance of the novels will still transfer to the screen though- I'm encouraged by the casting of new Bond, the ace Daniel Craig in the pivotal role of Lord Asriel. I guess only time will tell if it will be the new Lord Of the Rings, or, God forbid the new Dungeons and Dragons (shudder).