I can scarcely believe it. Apparently a film is being made of His Dark Materials; but according to a BBC news story, they’re removing all references to god and the church!. To paraphrase a comment I read on Slashdot recently, they’re going to have to fit seatbelts in the cinemas for this one, to stop the audience being sucked into the screen by the suckiness of it.

That report itself says:

The books tell of a battle against the church and a fight to overthrow God.

The film, therefore will tell of nothing at all, it seems. The reason for this is that

“They have expressed worry about the possibility of perceived anti-religiosity,” Weitz told a His Dark Materials fans’ website.

Perceived? Perceived? Madness. Yet apparently Pullman doesn’t mind. In fact, it also says Pullman has denied his books are anti-religious. Which, I’m sure, contradicts everything he’s said before. Incidentally, how do you tell a website something?

In other news, Peter Jackson will be removing all references to the so-called Dark Lord from the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  After all, we don’t want to offend anybody, do we?