2. Northern Lights (The Golden Compass) - Philip Pullman
In terms of fan outrage, the only item on this list that rivals the Earthsea miniseries is Northern Lights' adaptation into The Golden Compass. In a bid to please everyone, the movie ended up pleasing no one: toning down the antireligious sentiments offended the more militantly secularist fans of the novel, while doing nothing to quell the religious outrage over anti-Catholic sentiment. Add to this creative disputes, director shuffling, and a mess of post-production changes, and you get a gilded turd of a movie. Which is a tragedy, because it had the potential to be so great. Lyra is right up there with Sabriel in terms of pluck and courage. How many of us, as children, would be able to go adventuring alone in the Arctic? Or to step into an inter-dimensional rift just to prove the grown-ups wrong? Poor Lyra; she deserves so much better than the bomb New Line Cinemas ended up dropping on the box offices. However, the fact that the movie was such a flop (and such a relatively recent one at that) means that we might have to wait a long, long while before seeing the movie Lyra deserves.