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Peter Jackson Says Tintin Won't Be Done for Another 2 Years

by Alex Billington
November 25, 2009
Source: BBC

Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg on Tintin

Yep, you read that right. Although the first film, titled The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, is entirely shot and "in the can" as they say, it will still take two more years to finish creating. Avatar took just as long to finish, but then again two years ago we weren't reporting on that as much as we are now. This project, on the other hand, already has a lot of early buzz despite the December 23rd, 2011 release date set by Paramount. Jackson spoke with the BBC while in town for the premiere of The Lovely Bones and told them that the movie is done and cut together, it'll just take a very long time to render it.

"Tintin is great. It's made. The movie is cut together and now [we] are turning it into a fully-rendered film. So the movie, to some degree, exists in a very rough state," Jackson said. As we reported previously, Steven Spielberg spent 30 days directing The Adventures of Tintin back in March and then handed over the reigns to Peter Jackson, who will now be working on it for two more years (probably at Weta Digital). I just wish they would release a photo of the characters, because although I know what Tintin looks like in the comics, I just want to see how he'll look rendered in CGI. Head over to the BBC for a lil' tidbit on The Hobbit as well.

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Chris Sommer

Two years to render!? That must be some impressive CGI if all the animation and texture work is done and all that remains is the rendering. That or they have two old e-Machines in the closet with a taped on sign that says, "render farm."
Sam

Fuck Tin Tin .. Bring on The Hobbit.
http://www.firstshowing.net Alex Billington

#1 - Yes I know, technically speaking they're doing a lot more than just rendering for two years... But to use a simple term to refer to everything they're doing digitally (since at this point it's all being done on computers), I think "render" is the best word to use.
Sleepykid

Who cares? I love the books but I bet this sucks more than a dozen Dysons all switched on at once.
Shane

I'm glad shooting has finished. But c'mon Spielberg... where's Interstellar? We NEED an update on that project.
Mark

This film isn't completely mo-cap. It's being done like Gollum, a combination of animation and mo-cap. 2 years of animation is pretty standard.
Timothy

"That or they have two old e-Machines in the closet with a taped on sign that says, "render farm."" LOL!
Tra la la la la di da

YEA!!!!!
http://www.firstshowing.net Alex Billington

#6 - Do you mean it'll look life-like? Or will the characters look CGI like in Robert Zemeckis' mo-cap movies? I have no clue what they'll look like, that's what I'm most interested in.
Squiggly_P

Last I heard, the characters were all going to resemble 3D versions of the stylized comic characters. My best guess is that the characters will probably resemble the characters in the Zemeckis Christmas Carol... realistic rendering but stylized proportions and shapes to match what's in the comic. I'm hoping they'll go more towards a cartoony look than Zemeckis, because I am totally turned off by seeing the shiny, oily skin and pores and seeing every individual facial stubble and crap like that. I would love it if they would move more towards a pixar-ish look to the characters while maintaining the classic Tintin stylization, but I've head that they're veering more towards realistic shaders and stylized proportions. I guess we'll find out when they decide to show some of it off or release a few frames. Honestly, I originally heard they were going to shoot live-action backgrounds for these films, but I guess that was either inaccurate speculation or that the plans had changed. I don't imagine they shot background plates for an entire feature film in 30 days as well as mo-cap data. Pity, as I think doing the stylized characters on live-action backgrounds would have suit the original at quite nicely. Herge was quite famouse for his simple characters and his very detailed backgrounds. Animated characters on live-action footage would have fit quite well in my opinion. @Shane - That film isn't supposed to hit theaters for another 4 years. Not to mention the fact that he's literally attached in some way to over a dozen film projects and a couple TV series. While only a few of those might be in a direction capacity, that's still a lot of projects to juggle. I'd personally rather see him do the Lincoln thing first, but every time they set it up, the project falls apart at the last second.
http://blog.myspace.com/shero_rauf Shero

If the shooting is finished ...then it is normal for an hour and half movie to take near by 2 years by some small companies to do the CGI for it ... But we are speaking about Weta ( King Kong - Lord of the Rings .... .... ) ... the movie looks to be more than two hours ... and Weta are having great computers and special once who do the job in the fastest way possible ... You must just ask yourself ...how many other movies are they working on in the same time too !??? and keeping in mind ... that because of the high level of CGI in AVATAR ...now every big director will make it be sure that it looks better than AVATAR ... too ... And as in The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn comic there is not that much to do with CGI ..unless they want to made it as you call it mo-cap or (3D Motion Capture) ... As I saw in the images of the actors Jamie Bell (Tintin) and Andy Serkis (Captain Haddock) had the dots on their faces ..and it is a big prove that is will look like the Robert Zemeckis's movies ... The question is ... will be the entire movie like that or just the parts when (Captain Haddock) is telling (Tintin) the story of his ancestors while he is drinking ....
http://blog.myspace.com/shero_rauf Shero

Answering that question ... that you may not like : The entire movie will be Animation (3D Motion Capture) ... Did I spoil anything !!???
David Banner

This will most likely be a cool movie, only I see in my crystalball that 75% of income, if not more, will not come from the US-does anyone even know who TinTin is in the US??
beavis

i have no clue who tintin is............and that fact makes it difficult to see the excitement for this project.
Squiggly_P

Yeah, and that kinda pisses me off a little. I'm 31, but I've always known about Tintin. I had some of the books when I was a kid - and my parents probably had them since they were young. I don't really get how you can not know Tintin, but I've not met anyone in person yet who knows what I'm talking about. I can't even remember most of the stories, but the art has stuck in my brain and really influenced a lot of my taste as a child. It's really just sad that the US audience has been so snobbish about foreign films and foreign culture. This - citizens - is why the rest of the world thinks we're a bunch of pricks. We sincerely don't give a shit about any other country or any of their work. We are utterly self-absorbed as individuals and as a country. We've come to a point in cinema where the vast majority of films are remakes of foreign films, re-makes of old films or adaptations of comic books, and yet all three of those things - when not in a nice cinematic package - are sneered at by the same people who make up the bulk of the audience for the film. The original is ALWAYS better. Always. But you don't see issues of Spiderman flying off the shelves... you don't see people trying to find copies of [rec] or infernal affairs... maybe a few people, but we've already had copies of this shit for years - and THE SEQUELS which the US will probably never see. You certainly don't see people going out to buy the original versions of films, since anything made before 1995 is apparently too old and slow for the synaptic nerves of modern audiences to bear. So yeah, for once, the US is NOT the major target audience for this film. It's a major film made for a European audience. You don't like it or don't know who the hell Tintin is? Tough shit. Movie wasn't made for you.
ryderup

The animated "tv-series/tv-movies" looked like the cartoons and were great. This is not needed, not one bit.
Cineprog

It will take 2 years for the rendering of tin tin so a good 90 per cent of the film will be CGI it amazed me the live action stuff was finish in a mear 30 Days one month could it be a record by steven speilberg it will also be adding music and sound to the film. shall wait with baited breath for more information in the future.
beavis

squiggly _P, i am NOT snobbish. i enjoy many foreign films. right now, i'm looking forward to seeing "baader meinhof complex" very much. i loved "downfall" and "rec" to name a couple more!! and subtitles don't bother me either - if the movie is good, i'll watch it. you also talk about original verisons of films and movies made before 1995. if you read my comments on this site you'd see how much i agree with this. original versions of movies are almost ALWAYS better than these pitiful remakes hollywood churns out today. a couple of examples are "the fog" and "3:10 to yuma"......the originals are classics - the remakes were duds. i love old movies too......."dead of night"(1945 version);" grapes of wrath"; "12 angry men" (original - not the remake); " raisin in the sun"; phantasm (first one only).......just to name a few. i just haven't heard of tintin...... get over it.
Squiggly_P

I'm not talking about you specifically, just people in the states in general. It's fully possible to miss some stuff, even if you're a fan of foreign and classic film. Tintin IS an old series, after all. I was just commenting on the fact that a lot of people from the states are actually already big fans of foreign films, they just don't realize it because all of the stuff from other countries gets run through hollywood and sterilized. It's not that these movies are hiding, it's simply because those people don't look for anything until their TV tells them to look for it. Just bothers me. But yeah, I wasn't trying to call you out or anything, just remarking on the fact that the only people I know who are even aware of Tintin in any form are on the internet. No one where I work or live - none of my 'real' friends have ever heard of it. It's just odd to me, because Tintin is to Europe what maybe Mickey Mouse is to the US. Not THAT huge, but pretty much a household name. I just find it somewhat funny that many people will refuse to watch, read or acknowledge the existence of anything outside the US, and yet all of these re-makes and adaptations of foreign work - while far inferior to the originals - are just so damn popular here. I just wonder why people can't just remove the middle man and release the original instead of wasting all the money to re-shoot a film, only not as well.
Dee

I got to agree with Squiggly_P on this one. It is unfortunate the US hasn't seen much of Hergé work. I am glad to have had my parents buy me the books when I was a kid. Either way I hope this movie will make Hergé's work a little more accessible to American audiences. Tin-tin in a nut shell has great characters, locations, plausible, and realistic concepts. Speilberg and Jackson better not mess this up! *crosses fingers*