Following on from the articles last month on New Line’s financial woes, today’s New York Times takes a look at the importance of The Golden Compass movie to the film studio. Threatened with dissolution by its parent company – Time Warner – New Line’s production president Toby Emmerich acknowledged that if the film is a disaster, the company’s prospects would likely darken, whilst “if it’s a huge hit, I think our stock goes up within the Time Warner empire, and there’s more opportunity.”

The article also chronicles the production difficulties the movie suffered, with numerous changes in screenwriter and director. It says that even with Tom Stoppard’s original script, the religious villains of the piece were replaced with generalised authoritarian figures. The immense CGI cost is touched upon, particularly with daemons almost constantly on screen. It also notes that as recently as last month, director/screenwriter Chris Weitz was still revising scenes in a struggle to clarify the book’s complicated story.

Remarking that whether he will direct The Subtle Knife or not depends heavily on the first film’s success, Weitz says “My whole plan with the movie has been not to think past December 7th. Otherwise I would go completely insane.” Read more.