Tintin Movie

Peter Jackson may drop the idea of directing The Hobbit to concentrate on finishing his current project The Lovely Bones and preparing for Tintin. Meanwhile, Andy Serkis (Gollum in Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy) has been talking to Empire Magazine about the Tintin movie. He recently spent a week on the sound stage for Avatar, James Cameron’s latest blockbuster, along with Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg. Avatar is using Cameron’s Reality Camera System to film in 3-D and is likely to be part of the technology used in the Tintin films.

Its looking likely that Peter Jackson’s Tintin movie will be the first one made. According to the Slashfilm blog Spielberg has got three projects on the go once the new Indiana Jones film is done. They are Tintin, Lincoln and The Trial of the Chicago Seven. It seems that The Trial… will be the first made meaning Spielberg won’t be able to put any time into Tintin under the end of this year.

This make a fair bit of sense. Peter Jackson’s production company is doing the special effects for all three Tintin films and Andy ‘Lord of the Rings’ Serkis has been cast, probably as Captain Haddock. Spielberg has never directed anything that is 100% CGI so with Jackson going first, it he will be able to work out the kinks in the CGI more easily than Spielberg and get the actors used to the process.

Its being heavily rumored but not yet confirmed that Andy Serkis will play Captain Haddock. Serkis made is name playing Gollum in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings. As Peter Jackson is directing one of the Tintin movies and his production company is doing all the CGI, I’m not surprised that the excellent Andy Serkis is on-board.

Casting for the Tintin Movie has begun and we can be sure that The Secret of the Unicorn / Red Rackham’s Treasure will be the basis for one of the films at least. They are casting the Bird Brothers, Nestor, Sakharine (one of the people after the model ship), Aristides Silk (the pick pocket) and Red Rackham himself who are all in The Secret of the Unicorn. Mrs Finch (Tintin’s Landlady) and two kidnappers (presumably Allen & Ernie from the cast list) have a seen on page 35 of Secret of the Unicorn. Presumably Mr Crabtree is the market stall owner Tintin buy’s the ship from.

In the Crab With The Golden Claws, Mrs Finch makes an appearance plus there are Lt. Delacourt and Ahmed from the fort in Afghar (page 33). Omar Ben Salaad is the leader of the smugglers. The unnamed seaplane pilot & co-pilot are probably the ones who attack Tintin & Capt Haddock.

Some roles are new and not in the books. Barnaby (an American Interpol Inspector), Merrydew (a rival reporter) and Wetherbuck (Tintin’s Editor). Merrydew and Wetherbuck will possibly appear in multiple films so presumably they have been added to make Tintin’s world a bit more believable. Barnaby may be replacement for Bunji Kuraki, the Japanese police inspector who is kidnapped by the smugglers.

In The Crab With The Golden Claw, Tintin meets Captain Haddock for the first time and in The Secret of the Unicorn, the pair first meet Professor Calculus. By the end of Red Rackham’s Treasure, Captain Haddock owns Marlinspike Hall so this makes a nice development of characters across the films and nicely sets things up for any future films. It is still not clear if this is the cast and plot-lines for just the Jackson and Spielberg films or whether these will cover all three films.

Still, it looks like I was wrong about my predictions of which books would be made in to the films.

Its been reported that casting has begun in LA for the Tintin Movie. It is believed that the following parts are up for grabs.

• Aristides Silk, a seemingly friendly British or international pickpocket with a memorable face who is balding and has a mustache
• Allen & Ernie, two seamen smugglers disguised as workmen;
• Barnaby, a fat and sweaty American Interpol inspector who’s better at his job than he looks;
• Lt. Delacourt, the amiable, pipe-smoking British commander of the Afghar outpost who helps Tintin and Captain Haddock;
• Max & Gerontium Bird, these brothers’ businessman-like appearance bely the fact that they’re gun smugglers on the Karaboudjan;
• Merrydew, an the anxious, nerdy and envious reporter rival of Tintin’s;
• Mr. Crabtree, a stall keeper/vendor at the Old Street Market;
• Mrs. Finch, Tintin’s landlady with a fierce, beaky face and personality to match;
• Nestor, a kindly, efficient butler who works for the Bird brothers and finds himself in troubled circumstances;
• Omar Ben Salaad, a larger-than-life arms dealer with 14 wives and a commanding voice;
• The pilot and co-pilot of Omar Ben Salaad’s seaplane;
• Red Rackham, described as tall and thin, larger than life with a sinister edge;
• Sakharine, a tall, thin and mysterious stranger with a foreign accent that can’t be placed;
• Ahmed, an obedient soldier under Lt. Delacourt’s command;
• Wetherbuck, Tintin’s big, bellowing, cigar-chomping editor and mentor;
• Thomson & Thompson, two ineffective, narrow-minded policemen described as more stupid than mean, moronic yet pretentious, comical and clumsy. They are identical and can only be distinguished by their mustaches.

It possible that Wetherbuck, Merrydew, Nestor, Mrs. Finch and Thomson & Thompson will appear in multiple films, while one actor could play both Thomson & Thompson.

Motion capture will take place for 30 days in the US and 30 days in New Zealand allowing both Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson to shoot their footage. Afterwards, Jackson’s Weta Workshop will process the motion capture and produce the final film.

The Times has an article on the digital 3-D technology that the Tintin Movies may be shot in.

The new digital 3-D technology is different. Images are captured in much the same way – two cameras film the same shot – but they are projected differently. The old way was to project the two films from the separate projectors simultaneously, so that, through the glasses, each eye would see a different set of moving images. The brain would merge these stereoscopic pictures, giving the illusion of 3-D depth.

To see the film in 3-d the audience has to wear polarized glasses and the cinema has to be especially equipped the projector and a special screen. Wikipedia has a good article on the technology: Real D Cinema.

The technique that Real D uses is similar to the traditional method of 3-D imaging using polarized glasses. The traditional method works by projecting two differently polarized images onto the same screen, which are then filtered by polarized glasses worn by the audience. This type of 3-D imaging requires two projectors. Real-D however uses a single projector that alternately projects the left-eye frame and right-eye frame, and appropriately polarizes these frames using a liquid-crystal screen placed in front of the projector lens. The polarized glasses make sure each eye sees only “its own” picture. The very high framerate, which is 72fps per eye, makes sure the image looks continuous. In Real D Cinema, each frame is projected three times to reduce flicker, as the source video is usually 24fps. The result is a 3-D picture that seems to extend behind and in front of the screen itself.

I’m not sure I like the idea of Tintin in 3-D. Its gimmicky and in previous 3-d films, its adds nothing to the film. In fact its normally a distraction to film makers who get obsessed with having things jump out of the screen. On the plus side, as Tintin will be CGI, its a relatively simple process to create a standard 2-d version and a special 3-d version. This might help the directors stay focused on making a good film and not an technological experiment.

According to FilmStew.com:

..there will be no honey bunny for Tintin in the first of three motion capture animation films now being planned for 2009 release by the formidable tandem of Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg.

This according to an anonymous Moulinsart estate company source quoted in London’s The Times newspaper. Says he or she: “I’m sure the accountants in Hollywood would love some of that in there, but they can’t do it. We have approval over that just to make sure they don’t totally ruin it . . . But there is room for some artistic license.”

No Love Interest for Tintin

All about the Tintin Movie

This site is all about the forthcoming three Tintin Movies, directed by Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg. We are going to cover the what’s happening behind the scenes, film industry buzz about the movies, casting news, trailers and thoughts on how the Tintin movie should look.

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