There is still a lot of rumor flying around about whether the Tintin movies will get made. As we reported earlier (Tintin Movie in Financial Quagmire) Dreamworks is splitting from Paramount. As Tintin was a joint Universal and Paramount production it was assumed that Universal would pick up the film. However it seems that Universal are not keen on the $130 million price tag or the 30% gross Spielberg and Jackson are demanding.

With a reported $30 million already spent on scripts and pre-production costs, and two of the biggest names in the business wanting to direct, it seems likely that the films will get made. This may just be a negation technique from Universal to get the directorial duo to cut their fees.

Source: Universal Pictures pulls plug on ‘Tintin’

Tintin 3D is in French so I cannot be sure of exactly what the author is doing but it seems they he is finding or making real world objects based on Tintin’s adventures. Here is an example:

The website is full of such images and it is absolutely fascinating.

Personalised Moleskin notebooks with the Cigars of the Pharaoh logo, from the Flickr accout of JJTelecaster. Lovely photo and a great idea. I’ve been looking for an excuse to buy a Moleskin.

Source: Tintin Notebooks on The Ephemerist.

Simon Pegg, one of Britain’s leading comedy actors, has a big puff piece in the Sunday Times including an anecdote about meeting Spielberg.

…when he gets a call saying Steven Spielberg would like to meet him.

So he trots over to the motion-capture set for the ET director’s latest project – the first in a trilogy of Tintin movies. Motion-capture sets are bizarre, empty places. The event has been shot and is held in a computerised camera, which allows the director to swoop around the scene. As a result, there is only a computer guy and Spielberg sitting there.

“Steven’s smoking a stogy, cap on head, like he’s always been since I was a baby,” Pegg says, shaking his head in wonder. “I shook his hand and chatted about films. He gave me the mo-cap [motion-capture] camera, and I had a play around with it. Then he said, ‘Hey, maybe you and Nick Frost could play the Thompson Twins.’ In Tintin. A Spielberg movie. To work with him is beyond .. . ” He trails off, lost for words.

Source: Simon Pegg: He’s Mr Popular

Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are having problems raising the $130 million budget they need for the Tintin movies.

Originally Universal and Paramount were to fund and distribute the Tintin movies but they are concerned about the profitability of the films. With Spielberg and Jackson both directing and producing all the films, they will take 30% of the gross revenue from the box-office, DVD sales and TV. This means that the films would have to gross $425 million worldwide before the studios saw any profit. For comparison, Mission Impossible II, the 50th highest grossing movie of all time, took about $550 million. Both Spielberg and Jackson have films with considerably higher box-office gross.

The situation is made more complex by Spielberg’s split with Paramount Studio. Spielberg’s production company, Dreamworks, was owned by Paramount but in recent months Spielberg has been attempting to buy back Dreamworks and make it an independent company once again. (See: Possible Legal Problems for the Tintin Movie). This split has now gone ahead without, it seems, the usual Hollywood bitchiness and legal bun fight. The Reliance ADA group, an Indian based conglomerate, has brought half of Dreamworks with Spielberg and other principals in the company buying the rest in a deal worth somewhere between $500 million and $1.2 billion.

What all this hollywood shenanigans means is that the Tintin movies should now get funded and made. Tintin and Red Rackham’s Treasure (or whatever they call the first film) will probably be the first film out from the newly independent Dreamworks.

However, all of this will have delayed production. I suspect that filming of the first Tintin movie won’t start until December now. Though Spielberg may surprise us. His 2002 film, Catch Me If You Can was shot in 147 different locations in only 52 days.

Sources: Spielberg & Jackson Need A Tin Cup For Tintin!, Paramount Pictures releases Steven Spielberg from contract, DreamWorks, Reliance close deal, Top Grossing Movies.

Tintin fan site Objectif Tintin is shutting down tomorrow after Moulinsart sent legal threats over its use of Herge’s art in its logo and other places. Under Belgian law, such usage is legal but Moulinsart is throwing its muscle around more and more. Presumably it wants tight control over Tintin in anticipation of millions of new fans, and dollars, the Tintin movies will bring in.

Source: Tintin site decides to close up shop

• There has been some speculation that Spielberg would not direct the first movie after all. Apparently the source of this rumour was Herge Studios but is has been denied by both Spielberg and Jackson. However there is still no confirmation of Sangster as Tintin or any other cast and no sign that filming is about to start. Source: Steven Spielberg Still Directing ‘Tintin’
• The Pink Lotus, a Spanish update of Tintin featuring him as a 30 year-old tabloid journalist having a mid-life crisis has been pulled from the shelves due to its adult content: Bawdy Tintin book withdrawn from shelves and Twisted Tintin: Iconoclasm and the Belgian Boy Wonder
• Tintin fan Barrimore England-Davis has set out on a journey to follow the route taken by Tintin in the book Land of Black Gold: Tintin fan’s epic trip

According to reports in the New Zealand press, the first Tintin film will definitely be based on Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham’s Treasure.

We predicted this back in October last year based on the cast list. However there are a few oddities. The original casting list included characters from The Crab with the Golden Claw and Eric Stoltz has been cast as Dr Krollspell who appears in Flight 714.

Basing the first Tintin movie on the Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham’s Treasure makes a lot of sense. They are good, solid adventure stories with a straight forward plot that has a lot in common with Indiana Jones adventures. They also introduce Professor Calculus and by the end of it, Captain Haddock has Marlinspike manor.

Source: Details released about first Tintin movie

Tintin Movie has finally got a new design! I hope you like it. I’m still finishing off some of the details and minor pages so bare with me. If you spot anything that looks broken, please let me know.

Anyway, enjoy the new look site and especially the revamped Tintin Store.

Weta, Peter Jackson’s animation company that did the special effects for Lord of the Rings, have just announced the completion of a new data centre. This new centre has so much horse power it has four separate entries in the list of the wolrd’s top 500 supercomputers.

To what good purpose is this power being used for? Well, Tintin for starters. Steven Spielberg should start filming any day now, creating vast amounts of data that needs to be processed. Given the two to three year life expectancy of computers, most of this data centre’s life will be spent on making the three Tintin films.

The full, gory, technical details can be found here: One Data Center To Rule Them All