In January Rik Visser sent me an email, announcing that he and his associates wanted to createa movie adaptation of one of Philip Pullman’s less famous books, The Butterfly Tattoo, originally published as The White Mercedes. He asked me for HisDarkMaterials.org’s assistance in the production. As we receive a reasonable amount of email regarding  ambitious but ultimately unworkable plans I was wary at first, but my  interest had sufficiently been aroused that I scheduled an appointment  with Rik. We talked for a few hours, and by the time that the tabletop contained several empty (ice) tea glasses I was starting to think that the plan might actually work.