The Adventures of Tintin (Steven Spielberg, 2011)

[patrick]

From Variety:

Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are teaming to direct and produce three back-to-back features based on Georges Remi's beloved Belgian comic-strip hero Tintin for DreamWorks. Pics will be produced in full digital 3-D using performance capture technology.

The two filmmakers will each direct at least one of the movies; studio wouldn't say which director would helm the third. Kathleen Kennedy joins Spielberg and Jackson as a producer on the three films, which might be released through DreamWorks Animation.

Tintin has long been a passion project for Spielberg; he and Kennedy have held various film rights to the comedic adventure book series off and on for more than 25 years. With the rights in place, Spielberg, Jackson and DreamWorks began quietly developing the project. Jackson has also long been a fan of the comic books.

Jackson's New Zealand-based WETA Digital, the f/x house behind "The Lord of the Rings" franchise, produced a 20-minute test reel bringing to life the characters created by Remi, who wrote under the pen name of Herge.

"Herge's characters have been reborn as living beings, expressing emotion and a soul which goes far beyond anything we've seen to date with computer animated characters," Spielberg said.

"We want Tintin's adventures to have the reality of a live-action film, and yet Peter and I felt that shooting them in a traditional live-action format would simply not honor the distinctive look of the characters and world that Herge created," Spielberg continued.

Official word of the three-pic pact comes just weeks after Jackson inked a deal with DreamWorks to direct "Lovely Bones," based on Alice Sebold's haunting tome about a 14-year-old girl who watches over her family — and attacker — from heaven after she is raped and killed.

Tintin project, announced by the two filmmakers and DreamWorks co-chair-CEO Stacey Snider, may explain, at least in part, why DreamWorks emerged the winner in the bidding for "Bones," beating out several other suitors.

Tintin also answers the question of which tentpole Jackson will turn his attention to next.

The Spielberg-Jackson project isn't likely to languish in development for long. Spielberg could become available this fall after wrapping "Indiana Jones 4." Jackson will wrap "Bones" by the end of the year. He had been developing another possible franchise, Naomi Novik's Temeraire series, set during the French Revolution.

Spielberg and Jackson have selected three stories from Remi's "The Adventures of Tintin" series, which encompassed 23 books published between 1929 and 1976. The series still attracts 2 million new fans a year.

Series, which has sold more than 200 million copies worldwide, chronicles adventures of a junior reporter who will follow stories to the ends of the earth, even though he often finds his own life in jeopardy. His able assistants include a white dog named Snowy, the lunatic Captain Haddock, the muddled genius Professor Calculus and the Thompson Twins.

Jackson said WETA will stay true to Remi's original designs in bringing the cast of Tintin to life, but that the characters won't look cartoonish.

"Instead," Jackson said, "we're making them look photorealistic; the fibers of their clothing, the pores of their skin and each individual hair. They look exactly like real people — but real Herge people!"

DreamWorks bought the film rights from Herge Studios in Brussels, Belgium. Company is led by prexy Fanny Rodwell, Remi's wife when he died in 1983.

"We couldn't think of a better way to honor Herge's legacy that this announcement within days of the 100th anniversary of his birth, May 22, 1907," Rodwell said.

Spielberg and Jackson are currently evaluating whether to release Tintin through DreamWorks Animation. Paramount distributes all DreamWorks Animation films.

Honestly, I'm pretty excited about this.

[godardslave]

sounds to me like this will be a huge mess, to be honest.

[DrewReiber]

Why attempt to merge motion capture performance with an adaptation of the art style? Many of those characters' designs are so simple and distinctive, they don't lend themselves to the form and movement of complex human features. Sounds like more excuses to use motion capture than just film a live-action feature.

The cartoon series was pretty good in staying close to the aesthetic of the material, so I don't know why this is necessary. Sure, around the world the character and directors are popular enough to sell tickets to families regardless, but how hard would it really be to commit to *one* approach on this project? Seriously.

[Lino]

Why not use real actors?! Jeez!

Polar Express was such an abomination that I'm dreading this right from the start. One more adulterated childhood memory to add to an seemingly never-ending list... I wish they'd just stop doing this sort of things.

[Fletch F. Fletch]

Spielberg has found his Tintin:

Blistering barnacles! It's Spielberg's new Tintin
London teenager to star in three-movie series of Hergé's boy adventurer

Mark Brown, arts correspondent
Friday March 28, 2008. The Guardian

Thomas Sangster has been cast as Tintin in a new live-action film based on the comic book character to be made by Steven Spielberg.

For those who remember, he was the young boy who gets the girl in the film Love Actually. For those who don't, Thomas Sangster may yet become a household name. The sixth-former from south London, the Guardian can reveal, has been chosen by Steven Spielberg to be his Tintin for a three-movie adaptation of the boy reporter's adventures. The trilogy is likely to give the 17-year-old the same profile as Daniel Radcliffe, aka Harry Potter, or Elijah Wood, who shot to international stardom as Frodo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings series.

More than 200m copies of Hergé's Tintin books have been sold around the world; fans tend to be devoted, if not obsessed by the character, his faithful dog Snowy and his perpetually frustrated friend Captain Haddock, an endearing drunk.

Spielberg has been working with Peter Jackson, director of The Lord of the Rings and King Kong, on how to bring Tintin to life. Now the production has taken another significant step with the casting of Sangster, alongside Andy Serkis, who played Gollum in the adaptation of Tolkien's books, as Captain Haddock.

Both actors spent a week in Los Angeles before Easter running through scenes for Spielberg and Jackson; work begins in earnest in September, with a view to releasing the first film in 2010.

Sangster admitted to the Guardian that he had not read Tintin until a few days ago. "But I've always loved the cartoons. I never saw the books because I was never that big on reading. When I was really young I watched some episodes and loved it.

"You can really escape into this fantasy world ... I love cars and aeroplanes and stuff, any car or any aeroplane or any gun that was ever used in Tintin would always be real, an exact copy of it so if it was a car it would be a Citroen and if it was a gun it would be a Luger.

"Tintin is like a super boy scout. He knows how to fly these things. He knows how to drive these things. It's just like common sense: he jumps in and goes, he doesn't need to think about any safety, he just goes where he pleases. For such a small kid he's very good at beating people up and, being a cartoon, nowadays you know, there's all that 'we can't be violent'.

"Tintin would hit people over the head with bottles and shoot people. He probably wouldn't kill them but he'd shoot them in the shoulder. He was cool."

Many people will recognise Sangster as Liam Neeson's son in Richard Curtis's Love Actually or the oldest child in the care of Emma Thompson's Nanny McPhee, but his CV includes roles of varying sizes in 13 films. He is also the voice of Ferb in the Disney Channel's cartoon series Phineas and Ferb and has been on TV in programmes including Doctor Who and Stig of the Dump.

A child of theatrical parents - his dad Mark is currently starring as the mad hyena in The Lion King - Sangster is soon to undertake A-levels in art and media studies. He works part-time at a local garage when he's not at school or, as he is at the moment, rehearsing for the latest Jane Campion movie.

Sangster's agent originally sent a tape to Spielberg as part of an audition for a mini-series of Stephen King's The Talisman, which never got off the ground. Spielberg saw the tape and realised he had found his Tintin.

All the regular characters are expected to be in the new movies, including the oafish detectives Thomson and Thompson and the virtually deaf Professor Cuthbert Calculus.

But it is not yet known which of the 23 Tintin stories will be filmed. And while Spielberg will direct one and Jackson one, it is still not known who will direct the third.

They will be filmed back to back in the US and New Zealand, using the latest 3D technology, which is regarded within the industry as the next frontier of moviemaking.

Spielberg said recently: "We want Tintin's adventures to have the reality of a live action film and yet Peter and I felt that shooting them in a traditional live action format would simply not honour the distinctive look of the characters and world that Hergé created.

"The idea is that the films will look neither like cartoons nor like computer-generated animation. We're making them look photo-realistic, the fibres of their clothing, the pores of their skin and each individual hair. They look exactly like real people - but real Hergé people."

Tintin has become a worldwide industry, controlled by the Hergé Foundation, with limited edition vinyl toys proving particularly lucrative. The TV animated series of Tintin produced in the early 1990s has proved the most popular screen version of Tintin, while a stage version by British director Rufus Norris at the Barbican in 2005 transferred to the West Wnd and toured.

Hergé, who died in 1983, was briefly the subject of a race row last year when the Commission for Racial Equality said Tintin in the Congo, written in 1930, should not be sold in Britain.

Hergé admitted during his lifetime that the Congo book and Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, both with unsubtle racial stereotyping, were "youthful sins"

[Barmy]

Children of all ages all over the World have been clamoring for this.

[Nothing]

"I never saw the books because I was never that big on reading." - Yep, that's some challenging reading material right there.

They should have found a Belgian kid.

[Bananafish]

I guess I shouldn't complain seeing as how this movie was compromised from the start, but...

Ugh. How could Spielberg have missed the point so completely? Also - Tintin is an ADULT Steven.

[MichaelB]

"I never saw the books because I was never that big on reading." - Yep, that's some challenging reading material right there.

That said, The Blue Lotus wasn't translated into English until the 1980s because it was assumed that the setting (the International Settlement in Shanghai in the 1930s) would be too complicated for kids to understand. Which was a bizarre decision because it's one of the most important Tintin books - the one where Hergé finally found his voice. (Tintin In Tibet also makes much more sense if you've read The Blue Lotus first, which I hadn't at the time).

They should have found a Belgian kid.

And got a Belgian to direct it - Jaco Van Dormael seems to be back in circulation.

(I'm not sure who else might qualify - a Harry Kümel Tintin would be extraordinary but probably undistributable)

[a.khan]

Ugh. How could Spielberg have missed the point so completely? Also - Tintin is an ADULT Steven.

It's a "franchise." Which means merchandise, toys, that sort of thing.

[Zazou dans le Metro]

And got a Belgian to direct it - Jaco Van Dormael seems to be back in circulation.

(I'm not sure who else might qualify - a Harry Kümel Tintin would be extraordinary but probably undistributable)

Well how about a Belgian portfolio film with Lucas Belvaux in charge of the Melvillean moments ,Deruddere and Mariage for the off beat comedy, The Dardennes for the downbeat stuff (therefore nothing but the manic depressive moments of despair suffered by Haddock played by Olivier Gourmet) and Tintin played by Benoit Poelvoorde. It's gotta be better than Spielberg, non?

[Dr Amicus]

One definite plus point (hopefully) is that the screenwriter is Steven Moffat - his scripts for Doctor Who have been the highlights of the series so far.

"Are you my Mummy?"

[MichaelB]

The Dardennes for the downbeat stuff (therefore nothing but the manic depressive moments of despair suffered by Haddock played by Olivier Gourmet)

But Haddock's torrents of invective should definitely be handled by Ex Drummer's Koen Mortier.

[Antoine Doinel]

So with Spielberg at the helm, does this mean Tintin is going to have Daddy issues?

[Barmy]

Tin Tin is dead

Good riddance.

[aox]

I can't believe they said 'no' to both Jackson AND Spielberg.

[Barmy]

When King Kong died the studios cried.

[Bananafish]

Please someone take this away from Spielberg and Jackson.

[flyonthewall2983]

If they can't get it made, who will?

[LQ]

I hope this stays axed. what I love so much about Tintin is its droll, quaint european antiquity and like davidhare said, I can't imagine that those two directors with that kind of budget would honor the spirit of the comics. Just let it be. The only good that can come of this is that Tintin gets press here in the US....and maybe some kid, somewhere, will discover the magic of the comics.

[Max von Mayerling]

I second that emotion. Watchmen and the Spirit have already fallen victim to the mad rush to turn everything of quality that isn't nailed down into a film, even where the material doesn't lend itself to the 2 hour blockbuster format. I already have the Tintin comics ... why do I need a Tintin film? It can't possibly be an improvement. And then the cultural legacy of the thing gets mucked up by the half-baked attempt to cash in.

Once upon a time it seemed like Jackson had some ideas... what happened?

[Finch]

Count me among those who are surprised and all the more relieved at this news - I never felt remotely optimistic about either film and feel it's best they leave the comics alone. Since I can't see Paramount coughing up the dough, I take it Spielberg will do the Abraham Lincoln biopic next? (Not sure what Jackson had planned after his Tintin film)

[godardslave]

Once upon a time it seemed like Jackson had some ideas... what happened?

He used them all up making lord of the rings.

[swo17]

That would imply Lord of the Rings used more than one idea.

[Max von Mayerling]

I was thinking more along the lines of Heavenly Creatures. The bloom went off that rose pdq. Next he'll be making the Wii Tennis movie.