Get the biggest stories sent straight to your inbox Sign up for regular updates and breaking news from WalesOnline Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Screenwriter Jack Thorne, co-writer of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child with J.K. Rowling, is the latest big name to sign up to work with a Wales-based production company to bring fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials to the small screen.

BAFTA-winning writer Thorne, best-known for his television work on Skins, the This is England series and The Last Panthers, is set to adapt the Philip Pullman trilogy for TV and will work under producers Jane Tranter and Julie Gardner.

Trantner and Gardner are former BBC executives and founders of Bad Wolf, a UK/US production company with sites in South Wales and Los Angeles.

In 2005 Jane Tranter and Julie Gardner helped relaunched Wales-made Doctor Who , and also worked on Torchwood and Da Vinci’s Demons, which were also filmed in Wales.

His Dark Materials is produced by Bad Wolf and New Line Cinema which will be made in Wales for BBC One .

Bad Wolf executive producer Jane Tranter said: "It is an honour and a joy to be part of the team responsible for bringing Philip Pullman's trilogy of novels to the BBC.

"Ever since they were first published these books have been a huge influence on so much of my thinking and imagination and it is enormously inspiring to be now working on them for television adaptation."

His Dark Materials is a triology of books: Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass which tells the story of orphan Lyra, who lives in a parallel universe where science, theology and magic co-exist.

In 2006 New Line released fantasy film The Golden Compass - based on The Northern Lights - starred Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig and Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra. It was also adapted by British playwright Nicholas Wright and performed as a play at the Royal National Theatre's Olivier Theatre, London, in 2003.

His Dark Materials has been published in more than 40 languages and has sold more than 17 million copies.

Author Philip Pullman said: "The sheer talent now working in the world of long-form television is formidable. For all those reasons I’m delighted at the prospect of a television version of His Dark Materials.

"I’m especially pleased at the involvement of Jane Tranter, whose experience, imagination, and drive are second to none."