The last time we reported on Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson’s 3D motion-capture project The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn back in March, Spielberg had just finished wrapping a 32 day shoot of motion-capture lensing. The project was then handed to Jackson who will be working with the film for the next 15 months or so with his New Zealand-based special effects company, Weta.
However, with Tintin looking to be a major release for combined backers Sony and Paramount, the studios have already set a release date. But there’s an interesting thing to note: Tintin will be released internationally over a month before it hits U.S. theaters!
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The reason for this delay is because the U.S. is one of the few places in the world that isn’t all that familiar with Tintin. That lower level of popularity in the States – compared to Europe in particular – most likely means that Sony and Paramount want to test the waters, so to speak, before they release it over the pond.
An international release before a U.S. premiere will give the studios the critical reaction and box office results to judge how to handle promoting Tintin in the States. With the kind of revolutionary special effects and motion capture that is being employed, I’m guessing that at the very least American audiences will be lured by the eye-candy the movie offers. Most movies usually get a U.S. release before they go international – so I guess us Brits, French, Germans, Spaniards and so forth (you get the idea…), can bask in the luxury of getting this big movie on our screens first 
.
Considering Tintin’s popularity in most of the world’s markets (it’s been translated into over 50 languages), and low-profile in the U.S., it’s entirely possible that the film will do well internationally but tank in the States. If that turns out to be the case, would it mean the planned Tintin sequels won’t happen?
With the team that’s behind this project – particularly Spielberg and Jackson – that would be a damn shame. This movie has the potential to be something really great, especially with them combining the classic character with this state-of-the-art motion capture technology. I’m really looking forward to what we will get with this one.
The first Tintin movie is to be directed by Steven Spielberg, with Peter Jackson on-board to produce. It will star Jamie Bell (as the title character), Andy Serkis, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Daniel Craig. The second movie is planned to be directed by Jackson (with Spielberg presumably producing), and a third is planned but no director has been set yet.
What do you make of the studios planning to release Tintin internationally over a month before a U.S. release? Are you a fan of Tintin and are you looking forward to the movie?
The Adventures of Tintin: The Secrets of the Unicorn is to be released internationally in late October/early November 2011, and in the U.S. on December 23rd, 2011.
Source: /Film
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10 Comments
Not often I get to see a big budget film before you guys. Good news for yours truly. Especially considering you’re all out there now enjoying UP right now while I have to wait until OCTOBER to see the damn flick.
@Joshi,
I live in the UK where UP doesn’t get released for months. I feel your pain, dude.
Disney always does this though. I remember last year, Wall-e took ages to get to the UK as well. I’ve no clue why, there’s little reason to have such long gaps between release dates these days. With some movies, one could argue that with a different international distributor, it’s out of their hands, but Disney is doing the distribution world-wide for all Pixar films, so there’s no reason for this.
I mean come on, Night at the Museum 2 got a simultaneous release both here and in the US… what does that tell you?
A universal release date for ALL movies would cut down piracy by at LEAST 75%. I don’t know why they don’t have it already.
That an the fact that with reviews hitting websites within hours of a movies release, if a movie is found to be critically panned in the US, it won’t take long for international markets to find out about it and decide not to see the movie when it finally is released to them. Universal release dates lessen the impact of this somewhat, so it really is in a studio’s best interest.
The studio’s need to face facts, the internet has made the world a smaller place.
@Joshi,
I think the reason they do the delayed releasing is because they want the opposite affect of what you said i.e. positive reviews coming from the US to make international audiences want to see the film. But more films are bad than are good these days, so more often than not, their mentality hurts their box office.
As I say, that pesky little problem we call piracy would seriously diminish if they had a Universal release date.
Granted, with Up that’ll actually work because all we’re getting are good reviews for it (make that stellar reviews). But as you say, more films are bad than good. I’m still going to see Terminator Salvation next week just to make my own mind up about it, but people here know how much the US hates it by now.
Time was, movie studios would use the US as a testing ground for movies, see how well they did there box office wise so they knew how to handle it overseas. Now, because of the internet, that’s no longer a possibility. Plus, a number of studio execs have said, they’ve love to release movies Universally on the same date, but because of international distributors, they can’t always do it.
As I said before, Disney has little excuse as it does its own international distribution, at least here in the UK.
Yay for the Englishman! It’s like Taken all over again.
I don’t understand this decision.
Let me advice, before the rest, that I am from Spain.
The film is just form USA, so USA must just be the firts (or one of them).
What I really exactly want is an universal release for all films. But I force myself to understand that I don’t know all about bussine’s companies. I could understand Belguim for its first place. I don’t know why they take this kind of decisions. And I disagree; sure they might release, at leats, in all the occidental lands (plus Australia, some southamerican’s countries, Japan and Israel).
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