Peter Jackson is in London for the opening of The Lovely Bones and mentioned Tintin at a press conference:

“Tintin is great. It’s made. The movie is cut together and now [we] are turning it into a fully-rendered film”.

That is it for Tintin news but for more on the Hobbit and The Lovely Bones see: Peter Jackson says Tintin film is ‘finished’

A new photo of Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson on the set of Tintin.

Photo from Estrenos deCine.

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</p

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

A couple of choice quotes from the a LA Times article about the Tintin Movie.

“The actors have green dots on their faces and wear a kind of wetsuit, and the computer reads every movement and every facial expression.” He said computers can also manipulate facial appearance. “It means we can freeze the age,” he said. “Tintin will never age.”

Source: ‘Tintin’ project brings moguls together

Last month, Spielberg and Jackson had a brief, live link-up with the European Comics Festival in Angouleme. We posted about this at the time ( Jack & Spielberg Talk Brief About Tintin ). Now the video has surfaced on the official Tintin site. To watch, click here and then click the button marked “Voir En Entier”.

The remarkable pace of this movie is evident in that the directors are talking about just starting production yet less the 6 weeks later, it is already over.

According to Variety magazine, Steven Spielberg is about to wrap up filming after just 32 days. Of course, when we talking about filming we are really talking about motion capture data. No cameras (in the traditional sense) are involved in this process. The raw motion capture footage will then be handed over to Peter Jackson who will now spend the next 18 months converting the data into a 3D world.

With the short 32 days period of motion capture being done by Spielberg and the long hard work of post production in the hands of Peter Jackson, there is some debate about whose film this is. Spielberg will be getting full directing credits and Jackson will be down as producer but in reality it is starting to look like the final film will owe more to Peter Jackson than Steven Spielberg.

The Variety article highlights how closely director and producer have to work in a motion capture film, challenging the traditional concepts of the roles. The collaboration between the two film makers is being likened to how Spielberg and George Lucus worked together on the Raiders of the Lost Ark films. Kathleen Kennedy, long time producer of Spielberg’s films, said that the transitions between the two creative talents are relatively seamless and that “They are amazingly collaborative”…

Officially Peter Jackson is down to direct the second film but that will only go ahead if the first one is successful. Yet it may be that Jackson, as producer and controller of the film’s technology, has far more influence over the first film’s success than Spielberg. In a way, this makes me happier. Jackson has shown with the Lords of the Rings and King Kong that he understands fan’s emotional connection to source material and can be sensitive to it. Steven Spielberg’s work has often been with original scripts for the big screen and when they have been adaptions, it has been from relatively obscure books. There is also a very European (or at least British) idea that Jackson as a New Zealander will be more in tune the European nature of Tintin than the American Spielberg.

Source: Spielberg, Jackson dig into ‘Tintin’

The occasionally reliable Daily Mail has some on-set Tintin gossip from Daniel Mays and Mackenzie Crook, who are playing Alan and Ernie – sidekicks to Red Rackham (Daniel Craig). Both are comic actors with Mays having starred in the TV sitcom “Plus One” and Crook is most famous for his part in The Office. The pair of them are the comic relief in Red Rackham’s crew, a role very familiar to Crook after his work in the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy.

‘You’ve got the actors wearing funny tight bodysuits fitted with hundreds of motion-capturing devices and as you act, you can see yourself on a big screen with costumes superimposed on this character that looks like you. . . but isn’t.

‘In front of you there’s a camera that picks up every aspect of your face.

Five people with hand-held cameras are filming you. And Steven Spielberg is sitting there with a camera device manipulating all the images.

‘With all the people on the set and backstage, it’s like a Shuttle launch – just fantastic!’ Mays enthused when we met for drinks at the Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard.

Early on during the production Spielberg, sick with a cold, had to go to see a doctor. ‘We came in and there was Peter Jackson directing us via satellite from New Zealand,’ Mays laughed.

Source: Baz Bamigboye on coffee with Jessica Alba, Tintin’s secrets and school with Keira Knightley

Peter Jackson’s Wingnut production company have signed a deal with the Stradella Road online marketing company. Stradella handled the Lord of the Rings promotion and will be handling The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn. This deal covers all of Wingnut’s productions for the next few years

Press Release: Peter Jackson signs Multi-year Deal with Stradella Road

At the European Comics Festival in Angouleme there was a live video link to Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg how very briefly talked about the film. Forbidden Planet have an audio recording. It is not very good quality and the interesting bit starts at 3:10.

From our Continental Correspondent: the Tintin movie – Spielberg and Jackson speak at Angoulême

If you want to work on the Tintin movie, now is your chance.

Weta Digital (Peter Jackson’s production company) is looking for LA-based artists with experience in Motion Builder for a limited period shoot. Immediate start. Applicants should be technically competent and comfortable working within a team that is processing a high-volume of data.

Market Saw has the full gen: Know Motion Builder? Weta Looking For TDs For Tintin