'His Dark Materials' Gets A November Premiere Date From HBO, Series Will Also Draw From The Prequel Novels

We're coming to the light at the end of the tunnel, His Dark Materials fans. HBO has announced the His Dark Materials premiere date, setting the highly anticipated fantasy series' debut for this November.

After two trailers and several casting announcements, HBO has finally shined a light on the His Dark Materials premiere date. His Dark Materials is set to premiere on November 4, 2019 exclusively on HBO, as well as HBO NOW, HBO GO, HBO On Demand and partners' streaming platforms.

His Dark Materials adapts Philip Pullman's critically acclaimed epic fantasy trilogy, with the first season set to adapt the first novel The Golden Compass. The first book was previously adapted into a disappointing 2007 feature film directed by Chris Weitz and starring Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman.

But the HBO series, produced in a partnership with BBC, will hopefully do justice to the novel, an ambitious fantasy-adventure story that follows a spirited young girl Lyra (played by Logan breakout Dafne Keen) who embarks on a quest to rescue her friend after he is kidnapped, uncovering a vast conspiracy that involves a tyrannical church. It's set in a rich fantasy world with a deep and awe-inspiring mythology that Pullman expanded on even more in his latest prequel trilogy The Book of Dust, which is set to release its second book, The Secret Commonwealth, next month. It seems like the HBO series is determined to do justice by Pullman's sprawling, fantastic story, per series lead executive producer Jane Tranter's hints that the first season will use "a tiny bit" of the prequel's deeper mythology.

"As far as the deeper mythology is concerned, we grab at anything we can get," Tranter told Entertainment Weekly. "As [teleplay writer] Jack Thorne would say, it's like we've done a PhD in the mythology of these books."

There isn't actually much more mythology described in the first novel of The Book of DustThe Belle Sauvage, which is a fairly straightforward adventure story that takes place about a dozen years before the events of The Golden Compass. Most of the deeper world-building comes in the second and third books of His Dark Materials, though perhaps Tranter and Thorne are pulling from the yet-unpublished The Secret of the Commonwealth. If so, that presents some new and exciting details that even longtime His Dark Materials fans aren't familiar with.

Tom Hooper directs the highly anticipated series, which features a star-studded cast that includes James McAvoy, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Dafne Keen, and Ruth Wilson. The recently announced voice cast also includes Helen McCrory, David Suchet, and more.

Here is the synopsis for His Dark Materials:

Adapting Philip Pullman's award-winning trilogy of the same name, which is considered a modern masterpiece of imaginative fiction, the series follows Lyra (Dafne Keen), 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.

His Dark Materials premieres on HBO on November 4 at 9 p.m. ET.