While I am looking forward to this very much, I am sceptical about the casting of Lin Manuel Miranda as Lee Scoresby. For me, one of the few things the 2007 film nailed was its Scoresby - Sam Elliot, tall, wizened and gravel-voiced, was as close to the Lee of the books as I could imagine. Miranda as Scorseby? Looks like an attempt to widen the international audience/publicity to me... but we shall see.
shareLooks like an attempt by his "like-minded" acquaintances to provide him with a job.
shareThe Scorsby of the books had to gave been younger than Elliot. High-risk aircraft is a young man's game.
So I'll allow that Miranda is the right age, at least.
Apparently Pullman's prequel novella 'Once Upon a Time in the North' (which I haven't read), which features Lee Scorseby as a much younger man, suggests that he is 59 at the time of his death - much closer to Elliott's age than Miranda's.
I pictured him as advanced in age but still extremely active and healthy, with years of flying behind him.
Honestly, I would expect anyone who did something as insane as bringing a balloon to the Svalbard Islands to be much younger than 59.
Both as a matter of personality, and of beating the odds. Who lives to 59, if they do things like that?