A trio of articles from the entertainment press with import on The Golden Compass:

USA Today reports on the recent prevalence of fantasy movies, with New Line’s head of production remarking, “It helps to have a great book. There is a fan base built in. But I would never make a movie that had to be as successful as Harry Potter, a once-in-a-generation phenomenon, or The Lord of the Rings, a beloved book for the ages. Each movie must work on its own terms.”

Variety writes about various studios’ viral efforts on the internet, including the daemon quiz on the official TGC site, of which Variety says over a million have been taken.

The LA Times meanwhile reports on New Line’s woes of late, with the studio suffering a series of recent failures and its head of marketing quitting this week. The Golden Compass will be very important for the studio, but the Times reports that it has already “soared over its original $180-million budget because of re-shoots”.