LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY shawnsmalley)

My mom, always trying to reach out to my non-churchgoing lifestyle and freethinker uppityness, e-mailed me a Snopes article about a movie called "The Golden Compass, which is due out on December 7 of this year:

There will be a new Children's movie out in December called THE GOLDEN COMPASS. It is written by Phillip Pullman, a proud athiest who belongs to secular humanist societies. He hates C. S. Lewis's Chronical's of Narnia and has written a trilogy to show the other side. The movie has been dumbed down to fool kids and their parents in the hope that they will buy his trilogy where in the end the children kill God and everyone can do as they please. Nicole Kidman stars in the movie so it will probably be advertised a lot. This is just a friendly warning that you sure won't hear on the regular TV. (Full article here...)

This is honestly the first I've heard about the themes of this movie. I saw the trailer the last time I went to the movies, and they had a large display for it in the lobby as well, but I've not been aware of this author previously.
In all honesty, as an agnostic and as one who's always interested in digesting something new and contraversial, I'm interested even moreso in the film now.
What is everyone else's take on this movie, the books, and the backlash they are causing among the dominionist crowd? Could this top Harry Potter as the most hated childrens' series in history?