The Golden Compass is a 2007 fantasy adventure film directed by Chris Weitz, from a screenplay by Weitz, and based on the 1995 novel Northern Lights by Philip Pullman, the first installment in Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. It stars Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra Belacqua, Nicole Kidman as Marisa Coulter, and Daniel Craig as Lord Asriel, alongside Sam Elliott, Ian McKellen, and Eva Green. In the film, Lyra joins a tribe of seafarers on a trip to the far North in search of children kidnapped by the Gobblers, a group supported by the universe's rulers, the Magisterium.