Speaking with MTV, director Peter Jackson has discussed more details of his and Steven Spielberg’s upcoming ‘Tintin’ franchise.
Jackson repeated earlier sentiments regarding Spielberg’s completed cut. “[Steven’s] just finished his cut which he’s going to show me when I get home next week.” Jackson has presumably been busy doing promotion for Neill Blomkamp’s “District 9” which included a trip to this year’s Comic-Con.
The “Lord Of The Rings” director then took to discussing Spielberg’s film as well as his planned follow up. “Well obviously I guess it depends on whether you know the ‘Tintin’ books or not but the first [film] is based on ‘The Secret Of The Unicorn‘ largely with a bit of ‘The Crab With The Golden Claws‘ because we wanted to have the meeting of Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis) and Tintin (Jamie Bell).”
“This won’t mean anything to anybody if you’re not a ‘Tintin’ fan,” Jackson remarked. The MTV host then affirmed to Jackson that such fans were out there to which Jackson pointed into the camera and joked “Good, good. I can see three of them… and there’s fourth with his hand up. Excellent.”
As to what direction Jackson’s film will take, they haven’t quite decided, but they do have their eyes on a few storylines.
“We’re kind of taking bits from a couple of different books and in terms of the [film] I’m doing, I’m partial to ‘The Seven Crystal Balls‘ [and] ‘Prisoners of the Sun.’ That was always my favourite. I love ‘The Black Island‘ as well. But I’m keeping my options open. We haven’t nailed it down just yet and I’m going to reread all the ‘Tintin’ books again. I’ve read them about three times in the last year or two just to really get back in that world. I grew up with them and read them over and over when i was kid. But that’s my current thinking.”
But obviously, it’s still in the early days, a screenplay hasn’t been written, let alone a final storyline decided upon.
“We don’t start writing that script until next year when we’re done with ‘The Hobbit’ script so I’ve got a little bit of time to change my mind so I haven’t really made my final decision. But certainly ‘Seven Crystal Balls’ and ‘Prisoners Of The Sun’ are the front-runners at this stage.”
Looks like Jackson is a long, long way off his ‘Tintin’ project. Might this also have something to do with Edgar Wright’s heavy schedule? Wright, Joe Cornish and Steven Moffat wrote the script for Spielberg’s ‘Secret Of The Unicorn’ though it’s not known if their roles will continue. It would certainly pile onto Wright’s list of things-to-do but as he has yet to mention ‘Tintin’ in previous talks and with Jackson now noting “when we’re done with ‘The Hobbit'” — maybe it’s just ‘The Hobbit’ that’s stopping Jackson and whatever writers he’s got from starting.
Steven Spielberg’s “The Adventures Of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn” starring the likes of Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Daniel Craig, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost is due to hit theaters December 23rd, 2011 with Jackson’s follow up probably hitting about a year later, making for two Jackson-dominated Christmases with the two “Hobbit” and “Tintin” films. [MTV]
So Spielberg's cut is done in summer of 2009 (I guess special effects still to come) but will be released in winter 2011? Wow, that's a long time way. Maybe they'll need the 2.5 years to let everyone know just what the Tintin story is.
I'd always assumed that Spielberg's Secret of the Unicorn would be succeeded by Jackson's Red Rackham's Treasure; the one without the other is fairly pointless and clearly incomplete (the book of SotU ends with Tintin telling the reader they can see the rest of the story in the next volume). Unless they've squished them into one film, it'll be a truncated oddity on the level of the orphaned and abandoned Golden Compass.
That point aside, Seven Crystal Balls/Prisoners of the Sun would make a marvellous (and very creepy) film, though Tintin in Tibet is probably the strongest single volume.
I think Spielberg originally wanted Tintin In Tibet and The Blue Lotus to be the 3rd film. Not sure if that's still the plan but.
Up until now, it has been assumed that Red Rackham's Treasure will be the second film.
The first film will incorporate elements from The Crab with the Golden Claw and Secrets of the Unicorn. According to Spielberg, the film will end a little bit boefore where the book ends.
One of the reasons for incorporating The Crab… into the film is to introduce the character of Captain Haddock. But if they miss out Red Rackham's, they cannot introduce the character of Professor Calculus.
As the Professor is central to several books, it would be strange not to have him as an established character already.