It's a film based on a much-loved and controversial book trilogy, with a young hero on a quest helped by brave souls in a world full of darkness, magic and mystical creatures.

If this all sounds very Lord Of The Rings, it's because New Line Cinema, the company who wagered their fortunes on the film version of Tolkien's classic tomes, are doing the same again with a spectacular adaptation of the first novel in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series.

The Golden Compass (published in the UK as Northern Lights) hits cinemas this week [December 5] and is rumoured to be the most expensive movie ever made, with an estimated budget of more than £120 million.

It stars Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, but the story really rests on the shoulders of a 13-year-old newcomer called Dakota Blue Richards, who plays Lyra Belacqua, a precocious child who finds herself caught up in a mystery of epic proportions.

"I hope it doesn't affect my normal life too much," says the young actress, who lives in Brighton, Sussex, and has promised herself that she won't see the finished film until the night of the premiere. "Whenever I'm not in work, I'm back in school and just a normal pupil. I'd hate for the people at school to see me differently because of the film."

She might not have much of a choice. Already expected to be this year's major blockbuster (with that price tag it HAS to be), The Golden Compass is being presented as the first chapter in a three-part franchise, capitalising on the popularity of the books.

The novels are known for their complex themes, as well as their supposed anti-Catholic bias, which makes summing up the plot rather tricky.

In short, we are introduced to Lyra who lives in an alternative version of our world, she witnesses some shady behaviour by clerical body the Magisterium, meets her uncle Lord Asriel (Craig), befriends then evades the cold and calculating Mrs Coulter (Kidman), before heading north to rescue her friend Roger, who has been kidnapped by... well, you'll just have to see it to find out.

Making the journey more interesting are the various beasts she encounters along the way. Not only does she enlist the help of a talking armoured bear (voiced by Sir Ian McKellen), but one of the conceits of the story is that in this universe, every person has their own daemon (pronounced demon), which is a physical manifestation of their personality or soul, in animal form.

"I was lucky that my daemon is a snow leopard," laughs Daniel Craig, responding to the trickiness of interacting with a void - later to be replaced by a computer-generated image. "As long as we leave enough space by my side, it's all fine. Nicole had much more to do, because she had to interact with her daemon [a monkey] a lot more, as did Dakota. They had a green blob to hold, to act with, but I kind of lucked out."

"That was the part that made it so difficult," agrees Dakota, whose daemon Pantalaimon fluctuates in form, but favours an ermine. "We had the green sack and the person reading the voice, but other than that, you had nothing to go on."

The CGI was certainly the biggest challenge for writer/director Chris Weitz (of About A Boy fame) who initially got the job and then stepped down at the enormity of it all, before returning.

"I feel tremendous relief," he says now. "Three years of really making two movies at once - one with the live actors and another with the computer-generated bears and the animals - really takes its toll on your health. It's a struggle to deliver a film that both people who haven't read the book and the hardcore fans will want to see.

"When I first got the job about three years ago, I went to Peter Jackson's company in New Zealand to see what his team did and I thought, 'There's no way I can do this'," he continues. "I stepped off the film as director, but stayed on as screenwriter. Working on the screenplay, I got more and more used to how it could all be visualised."

One particular sticking point has been the nature of the religious allegory, something that becomes increasingly vivid in the next two books.

"Pretty early on I laid out that I wasn't going to use the word 'church'," says Chris. Mostly to me that was choosing not to be aggressive because I don't believe His Dark Materials is an aggressive anti-religious or anti-Catholic series of books.

"In terms of what's being called 'watering down' the plot, I believe that fans seeing the movie will feel their worst fears about things being pulled out of the film haven't been realised. It's just certain things that might offend an audience member have been toned down."

Most importantly, with so much riding on its success, it's about making sure the film appeals to the whole family. Dakota admits that when her Mum read the book to her when she was nine, she found it "confusing at first". "I didn't understand it at all," she reveals. "To me, it was a sweet children's story about her friends and some other characters."

What's more, those characters are far from straightforward. "If she was a real person, we wouldn't be friends," says Dakota of her alter ego. "We're too similar in that we're both opinionated. I think we'd get on each other's nerves."

Lord Asriel is a dark horse too. Though dashing and mercurial, the twists and turns of the plot mean you are never quite sure of his intentions. And for Daniel, basking in the success of Casino Royale, there were no qualms about plunging into another recurring role.

"It didn't bother me at all," he says. "That sounds like I have some grand plan, but it wasn't like that. It was a happy accident that it came up."

The father-of-one also revelled in sharing the screen with a raw youngster. "I get a big kick out of it," he explains. "You've got to work very hard and keep them enthused because it's a long day and the kids' energy levels go down. Dakota learned very quickly though and I teased her a lot."

However, working with children did mean the actor had to tone down his language, and a swear box was established on the set so that for every curse uttered, he had to pay his young co-star a pound.

"It was worth the money, every penny," he laughs. "It cost me a lot, but it was good. It became a bit of a joke after a while. Sometimes, I'd be on set and I wouldn't realise I'd sworn until I heard someone shout, 'That's another pound!'"

"It should have been £200 or something, but there was £150 or so at the end," adds Dakota. "Daniel still owes me money. He says there's a tab!"