Tintin Movie: Spielberg, Jackson Directing And More Details!

The news of a photorealistic, CGI Tintin movie trilogy, to be directed by Stephen Spielberg, Peter Jackson and a third director to be named later (my guess, along with others, is Robert Zemeckis), isn’t new. But it’s still incredibly cool!

A writer has been named, who will likely end up writing all three films. Steven Moffat has the honor of putting pen to paper, so to speak, on this groundbreaking idea (c’mon, Spielberg and Jackson? Throw in Zemeckis, or even Lucas, and you have the granddaddy of all film trilogies!). Moffat has worked on Dr. Who, and has other credits in England.

Over the years Spielberg has been hesitant to move into digital cinematography for his films, though he once stated that if George Lucas (his long-time friend and producer on the Indiana Jones movies) asked him to shoot digital, he might consider it. So it came as a surprise to me that Spielberg would embrace the idea of motion capture technology (aka, performance capture or mo-cap), and that the movie would be done with digital, photorealistic effects via Jackson’s Weta.

The plan is to retain the look of creator Herge’s original Tintin designs. Jackson commented in a press release earlier this year:

“[W]e’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!”

The films will be released in 3D, much like James Cameron’s Avatar and Zemeckis’ upcoming Beowulf (though the latter will be a limited 3D release).

A few things spring to mind… Jackson is working on The Lovely Bones right now, and Spielberg is in post-production on Indiana Jones 4, and is gearing up for his President Lincoln biopic with Liam Neeson as ol’ Honest Abe. According to reports, the Lincoln film will shoot very soon. With the potential Hollywood strikes to hit next July, both directors would have to shoot their respective films at least three months prior, at the same time.

Mo-cap movies take anywhere from 60-90 days to shoot, so we’ll see what happens. Spielberg regularly shoots three movies in a row (like The Lost World, Amistad and Saving Private Ryan), though he usually does it over a two year period. This would be about a year, including Indy 4, Lincoln and Tintin.

Suffice it to say, I’m pumped about this! I wasn’t the biggest Tintin fan as a kid (I was more into comic books and Transformers as a young lad), but I still dug the books!

Source: Ain’t It Cool News