More on the Weitz Adaptation of His Dark Materials ...

A couple weeks back I posted this article blowing off a little steam after learning that Tom Stoppard had been bumped from His Dark Materials in favor of a script adapted by American Pie director Chris Weitz.

But wait! you cried ... how could I slag a film that hadn't even started filming yet. Because I'm a clever boy, that's how. It's now coming out that Weitz has made some MAJOR changes to the content of the books, including stripping the explicitly anti-religious subtext in favor of something a little friendlier. Fans of the books are, shall we say, less than pleased ...

Am I surprised? Not even a little. After the previous post about Weitz' work as a screenwriter I finally got around to checking out the screen version of About A Boy, which Weitz adapted from the Nick Hornby novel. For the first two acts everything was spot on as Weitz essentially lifted text word for word, but in act three things started to change. A lot. Weitz took an emotionally complex book and jettisoned very nearly all of the more difficult material in favor of something far more cheerful and uplifting that what Hornby actually put on the page. It looks as though he's now doing the same thing here ...

Digital Spy has an article about this here.