Chris Weitz has barely settled into his seat when he reveals, with child-like enthusiasm, that what he's most been looking forward to during his stay in Hong Kong to promote his latest film, The Golden Compass, is going to yum cha the following day.
Looking slightly weary after jet-setting around the globe for weeks in support of the film, and in town on the last stop of the publicity tour, the US movie producer and director has an eagerness about him that will have served him well for the epic lengths he had to go to bring The Golden Compass to the screen.
Among the first things he had to do when he agreed to undertake the project three years ago was travel by ship to the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard alone (without cast and crew), with the aim of adapting Philip Pullman's Northern Lights into a screenplay in a harsh, wintry climate that would hopefully resemble part of the geographical settings in the novel.
A self-confessed hater of cold weather, Weitz was forced to write in longhand when the ship's electricity mains 'fried' his laptop; and while his fellow travellers went ashore to visit the islands' tremendous landscapes, he remained in the ship's saloon, alone, to work on what would eventually become an astounding 156-page draft of the movie's screenplay.
Weitz says he needed to demonstrate to the film studio his keenness to get the project off the ground and convince the executives they were making the right choice, especially given the fact he'd previously done only comedies, albeit successful ones like American Pie and About A Boy - hardly the digitally enhanced spectacle that he hopes will rival the Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings franchises.
However, Weitz's filmography belies a background that is much closer to Pullman's books than many of his peers. He studied at Cambridge and majored in English literature, with his speciality being the work of John Milton.
