“There will be no cell phones, no TV sets, no modern cars. Just timeless Europe.” – Steven Spielberg

Le Monde magazine interviewed Steven Spielberg about his work on Tintin. The interview was presumably done in English and translated to French for publication and I’m translating it back into English via Google so the wording may not be spot on. However, the meaning is clear, the Tintin movie will not be some hideously re-imagining of Tintin. Spielberg goes on to say.

“Peter Jackson and I have the opportunity to honor the art of Hergé, his tone, his palette, his characters.” He denies [The translation is garbled here, possibly "to amend the famous Tintin tuft"?] He added: “The body language is very important. There is no question of touching it. We religiously respect the art of Hergé.”

From this interview, it certainly sounds like the Tintin movie will stick closely to the classic Tintin look-and-feel though they have previously described it as “film noir”. We may have a better idea in the new year as Peter Jackson has previously indicated that the first images of the CGI will be released in January.

Also due in January is an announcement on Peter Jackson’s choice of books for his film or films. The Seven Crystal Balls and Prisoners of the Sun are widely tipped as favourites.

Source: Steven Spielberg révèle ses secrets pour adapter Tintin au cinéma (via Spielberg, Jackson Talk More “Tintin”).

The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum has released its entire collection of airline posters online. It features some 700 posters from the early days of flying including many from the 1920s and 1930s. Not only are many of them beautiful works of art but these are the posters that Herge would of seen as he started work on Tintin.

Aircraft play a significant role in many of Tintin’s adventure and flying was a very glamorous activity up until the 1950s. In these days of budget airlines and three hour check-in queues, it is very easy to forget just how enthralling the idea of flying was to Herge’s generation.

One of the problems I had in creating the Travels of a Boy Reporter map was working out how Tintin and Captain Haddock travelled from Belgium to Peru in between The Seven Crystal Balls and Prisoners of the Sun. At the end of book one we see them boarding a flying boat and at the start of Prisoners, they are in Peru. I hunted the web and aircraft forums for information on flying boat routes from Europe to South America but I could not find any. Consequently, I guessed at a route involving flying down to the Cape of Africa and across the South Pacific.

Now, thanks to the Smithsonian, I can update the map with a correct route. The poster above shows routes for Imperial Airlines (the main flying boat operator) in the late thirties and there is a route from Europe via the west coast of Africa to South America. This map also shows a similar route as does this airmail route map. These are the maps Herge would of seen as he planned Tintin’s adventures so I can confidently update my map.

Peter Jackson was at the San Diego Comic Convention, talking about a lot of things including Tintin.

Jackson’s work on Tintin is still in early stages but he insists that the films are being made by people who are true Tintin fans. He also said that the design of the film was intended to be as true to creator Herge’s original designs as possible but with added textures. Otherwise, he indicated that they might as well just do a live-action version, which neither he nor Steven Spielberg (who is directing the first film) wanted.

Source: SDCC: Peter Jackson, James Cameron Fight For Cinema’s Future

Different blogs have picked up different comment from the event. Chud is reporting:

Jackson said that he was still trying to figure out which book he wanted to adapt, and that he would probably be rereading the entire Tintin series to make his decision.



That said, Jackson mentioned that he was currently leaning towards either The Seven Crystal Balls or Prisoners of the Sun. It’s likely that he would actually adapt both, as Prisoners of the Sun is the sequel to The Seven Crystal Balls. The story involves an Incan curse brought on by the discovery of a Peruvian mummy.

Source: COMIC CON 09: PETER JACKSON HASN’T STARTED WORK ON HIS TINTIN

As the first film will combine The Crab with the Golden Claws and The Secret of the Unicorn into one story, would Jackson really do anything other than Red Rackham’s Treasure? Failing to do so would miss the opportunity to introduce the character of Professor Calculus whose first appearance is in Red Rackham’s Treasure. It would also beg the question ‘What is the Secret of the Unicorn?’ if it is not a map for Tintin & Haddock to follow? Are they going to skip the whole adventure to the Caribbean and have Tintin solve the puzzle whilst imprisoned in Marlinspike’s cellar?

However, if Jackson is doing Red Rackham’s Treasure he had better get a move on. With multi-part films (Lord of the Rings, for example) the release dates of the films need to be relatively close, no more than a year apart, other audiences will lose interest in the project. With Secret of the Unicorn coming out in late 2011, a release date of summer or late 2012 for the second film is logical. This means the script needs to be written and the cast scheduled for motion capture.

UPDATE: More information and quotes.

As for the second movie, he reveals that production is pencilled in for the second half of 2010, a year before the first one’s release. “I’ve got to get through The Hobbit first, then we’ll move onto that. At the moment we’re keeping our options open, but I am very partial to The Seven Crystal Balls/ Prisoners Of The Sun. I’m going to read them all again before deciding which to have a go at.”



The EW interview quoted above adds some details. The first Tintin film, directed by Steven Spielberg, is currently at the first-cut stage. It will take two years to do all the animation and rendering needed for the final product. (The film has to be edited first because no one wants to pay for expensive rendering on shots that won’t end up in the final cut.) Peter drops the remark that he hasn’t decided which Tintin books to include in the second film, and that he and Spielberg would like to do a longer series if the first films succeed.

Source: Comic-Con news, and why there’s still no casting for The Hobbit

Herge liked to mix real and fictional geography in his story-telling, sometimes explicitly and sometimes implicitly.

Machu Picchu doesn’t appear directly in the books but it can be assumed as the basis for the temple in The Seven Crystal Balls / Prisoners of the Sun. Located high in mountains, in a remote part of Peru, it was the last strong hold of the Incas. A sacred site, one of the main buildings is called the Temple of the Sun. The site was ‘discovered’ and made famous in 1911 by the American explorer and historian Hiram Bingham.

This facade appears in The Red Sea Shark though you may be more familiar with it from Indian Jones and the Last Crusade. In reality it is in Petra, an ancient city in modern-day Jordan and is one of the true wonders of the world. At its peak, around 200AD, it was a city of over 20,000 people with a sophisticated water management system that allowed the city to thrive in the middle of a desert.

Loch Lomond itself never appears in the books but it is a name familiar to all Tintin fans as Captain Haddocks favourite tipple. It is particularly prominent in The Black Island as Tintin visits Scotand but it crops up regularly in a number of books. There is a real world Loch Lomond Distillery who do tours. So, if you are ever in Scotland, call in, see how they make the whisky and have a wee dram for Captain Haddock.