Brussels-based Herge Studios, owner of rights to the classic Tintin comic strip, recently broke word that Peter Jackson would take over Steven Spielberg’s installment of the planned DreamWorks motion-capture trilogy of feature films based on the comic. The Hollywood Reporter, however, reports that Spielberg is still on the job. The first Tintin flick will be the filmmakers’ follow-up to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Jackson will direct the second Tintin adventure, and the third is up for grabs.
Created by Georges Remi under the pen name Herg’, the comic strip The Adventures of Tintin first appeared in a Belgian newspaper in 1929. The tales of the young, traveling reporter and his dog, Snowy, have since been published in 50 languages and more than 200 million copies of the books have sold over the past 70 years. Two live-action Tintin films and three animated features were made in the ’50s and ’60s, and a pair of television series adapted the comic-strip stories with animation.
Spielberg’s Tintin movie will be based on two of Herg’s comic-book adventures,, The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham’s Treasure, both written between 1942 and 1944. Doctor Who writer Stephen Moffat is adapting the books for the screen. The cast will include British teen Thomas Sangster (Love, Actually) as Tintin and Andy Serkis (King Kong) as Captain Haddock.
Jackson is putting the finishing touches on his filmed adaptation of Alice Sebold’s bestselling novel The Lovely Bones for DreamWorks and Paramount, and has recently committed to co-writing the two Hobbit films, which Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Pan’s Labyrinth) is directing for New Line Cinema and MGM.
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