His Dark Materials fans had better prepare themselves for plenty more of James McAvoy's Lord Asriel.
It wouldn't be unfair to describe the character as AWOL during season 2 of this universe-splitting HBO show – after all, Dafne Keen's Lyra Belacqua and Amir Wilson's Will Parry are the main drivers of the storyline – but that's about to change.
Attending this month's Edinburgh International TV Festival, executive producer Jane Tranter revealed (via RadioTimes): "We had the joy of having James McAvoy back with us," while Asriel's delayed appearance in Philip Pullman's book The Amber Spyglass meant writer Jack Thorne was forced to create brand-new scenes to accommodate the actor.
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Further to this, the Scotsman himself (famous for turns in X-Men, The Last King of Scotland and Glass) previously said of season 3: "What can I tell you? It's war.
"At the end of the second season we sort of declare war on the Kingdom of Heaven, so yeah it gets pretty down and dirty, and there's gonna be a lot of fisticuffs and a lot of explosions and all that stuff.
"But at its heart it's about a wee girl and a wee boy... and not the adults with the egos."
Related:James McAvoy confirms marriage to partner Lisa Liberati
Ruth Wilson, who breathes life into the complicated Mrs Coulter, also shared back in May: "[It's] definitely sort of the most ambitious, I think of the three.
"You have Mulefas [strange elephant-like creatures] and you've got so many different worlds to explore, and you've got to complete all these storylines. So you've got to kind of complete the stories for Lyra, for Mrs Coulter, for Asriel.
"It's huge themes and big ideas, so I think a lot of that comes in the third season. That's quite ambitious for all of us to deal with and to sort of put out there."
His Dark Materials airs on BBC One in the UK and HBO in the US.
![His Dark Materials Season 2 (Includes 4 Art Cards) [DVD] [2020]](https://hips.hearstapps.com/vader-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/1607942882-415ghtY9aQL.jpg?crop=1xw:1xh;center,top&resize=980:* "His Dark Materials Season 2 (Includes 4 Art Cards) [DVD] [2020]")
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BBC/HBO His Dark Materials - Season 1 (Includes 4 Art Cards) [DVD] [2020]
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Reporter, Digital Spy
Dan is a freelance entertainment journalist. Beginning his writing career in 2014, Dan's work first graced the pages of cult publications Starburst magazine and Little White Lies before moving onto Total Film, Digital Spy, NME and Yahoo Entertainment.
In the film and TV universe, he kneels at the altar of Jim Carrey, Daniel Plainview, Mike Ehrmantraut and Paulie Walnuts.
