'His Dark Materials' Trailer: The Beloved Fantasy Series Comes To Life On HBO

Game of Thrones may be over, but HBO still plans to scratch your epic fantasy itch. His Dark Materials, a co-production with the BBC, premieres next month and the newest trailer is full of astonishing visuals, slick action, and fantastical world-building that should grab the attention of fans of the source material as well as those completely new to this world. Check it out below.

His Dark Materials stars Dafne Keen, James McAvoy, Ruth Wilson and Lin-Manuel Miranda and while they all get a fair amount of screen time in this trailer, I'm not entirely sure who they are or what they're doing. But as someone who hasn't read Philip Pullman's beloved book trilogy upon which this series is based, I'm very intrigued. Keen has had my attention since her work in Logan, watching Miranda play a glowering badass should be a hoot, and any show where a main character is a talking polar bear can't be entirely bad. In any case, it has to be better than 2007's The Golden Compass, the previous attempt to bring this series to the screen, which was derided by fans for watering down the material and by everyone else for just being kind of lousy.

Right now, the big question is how much of the trilogy this first batch of episodes covers and whether we'll get to see the entire series adapted from this team. We'll find out when the show arrives in just a few weeks and the reactions and ratings start pouring in.

Here's the official synopsis for the series, just in case you're like me and need all the help you can get:

Adapting Philip Pullman's award-winning trilogy of the same name, which is considered a modern masterpiece of imaginative fiction, the first season follows Lyra, 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. As she journeys through the worlds, including our own, Lyra meets Will, a determined and courageous boy. Together, they encounter extraordinary beings and dangerous secrets, with the fate of both the living?—?and the dead?—?in their hands.

The first episode of His Dark Materials arrives on November 4, 2019.