Total Film’s web site has a feature entitled The Adventures Of Tintin: Everything We Know. It is a recap of how Spielberg acquired the rights, the problems of financing, the cast and working with Peter Jackson.

There is no new information but there is some confusing / wrong information.

On the script Total Film says “The first draft was knocked up by Coupling writer Stephen Moffat, only for him to turn his back on the project”. This is not entirely true – The script was complete but Moffat was prevented from working on the script for the second film because of the writers strike in America. By the time that finished, he had been offered a chance to fulfill a life long ambition to write for Dr Who.

See Moffat Walked Away From Tintin and Moffat Denies Quitting Tintin for our original coverage. Note also how Total Film report that Moffat walked away from $2 million yet the original newspaper reports it was £500,000. A great example of the guesswork and the constant inflation inherent in the game of chinese whispers that is reporting on Hollywood.

Total Film go on to give credit to Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish for the bulk of the script writing duties where as the original press release gives them equal credit and the info at the time suggested this was just minor changes to Moffat’s script. However Total Film go on to say:

“….have condensed events from three of Hergé’s stories (The Crab with the Golden Claws, The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham’s Treasure) in order to introduce the major characters ….”

This is (probably) wrong.

Comments from Spielberg have previously put the first film as covering The Crab and events up to the end of Unicorn. Also Professor Calculus has never appeared on any cast list and Red Rackham’s Treasure would be unthinkable without Calculus and the shark submergible.

In promoting their 2011 releases, Paramount and Sony have given us a sneak peak of the Tintin movie logo.

Source: New Movie Logos for MIIIB 3D, Spider-man 3D, Mission Impossible 4 and More (Thanks Proman!).

It turns out the new photos from the filming of the Tintin movie I reported on the other day are not so new after all.

According to regular readers Sam and Proman, these have been out for a while and originally appeared on Tintin.com. Somehow I had missed then when they first came out and despite having looked twice, I still cannot find their original appearance.

Note: The photos below are copyright to someone, probably the production company behind The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn or Moulinsart.

Two new photos from the filming of Tintin have surfaced.

This shot (reportedly) shows Jamie Bell with another, unidentified actor and members of the crew. Snowy is simply a piece of cardboard on the end of a broomstick and just there so that the actors have something to react to when filming the scene.

Actually, that should be capturing, not filming, the scenes. There is no film or even video involved in this process.

The strange, wet-suit style, costumes the actors are wearing are covered with markers. These markers are tracked by sensors placed all over the room and their location are precisely recorded hundreds of times a second and stored to a computer. This data is then used in the CGI animation process allowing the director to create any style of image they want but based on the real movement of actors.

There is a second photo over at As Aventuras De Tintim, a Brazilian Tintin blog: EXCLUSIVO: Novas imagens do set de Tintim. I cannot find these images anywhere in the mainstream yet so this is a real scoop for them.

“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”).

Yahoo France is reporting that the first images from the Tintin film will be released at the International Festival of Comics between the 28th and 31st of January 2010. No further details are available.

Source: Le ” Tintin ” de Spielberg à Angoulême !, Visual de Tintim será revelado em janeiro

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

Photo from Estrenos deCine.

John Williams is composing the soundtrack for the first Tintin movie, Secret of the Unicorn but putting together a full orchestral score is not the work of one man. Conrad Pope, a long time collaborator with Williams is working on the orchestration of the score and spoke to the John William Fan Network.

I’m currently orchestrating a large piece with a number of ideas. The main theme is highly energetic, filled with great tonal twists and turns, reflecting, I suspect, Tintin’s heroic energy. It will become a classic, I think. To give more information would be to reveal things that I don’t think JW would want to say.


We are at the beginning of the process. The main scoring sessions are off in February.

Source: Williams Orchestrator Talks ‘Tintin’ Score via Trilha sonora de Tintim pode se tornar um clássico and La musique du prochain film Tintin.

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

Ubisoft, the French video game company, has announced a deal with Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg to produce video game tie-ins for The Secret of the Unicorn (and presumably, Red Rackham’s Treasure).

Despite being one of the top ten game companies in the world, Ubisoft are not known for their film related games. Though they do produce a number of franchise related games such as Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six, Formula 1 racing games and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Probably their biggest, original title of recent years has been Assassin Creed, a free roaming adventure game in a rich graphical environment.

Film tie-ins do not generally make good games through there have been a few exceptions. It all depends on intent. Will the game makers just try cash-in and reproduce the movie or will they use the movie as a starting point but try to create something new? Hopefully they will do better than previous attempts at a Tintin video game.

Ubisoft Press release:

PARAMOUNT DIGITAL ENTERTAINMENT AND UBISOFT® ANNOUNCE DEVELOPMENT OF “TINTIN” MOVIE VIDEO GAME


Ubisoft® Acquires License to Create Video Game for Groundbreaking Film Adaptation of Hergé’s Beloved Hero Tintin


SAN FRANCISCO – June 1, 2009 – Today Paramount Digital Entertainment and Ubisoft announced the development of a video game based on the upcoming film “Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn.” The video game is expected to launch simultaneously with the highly anticipated film adaptation of one of the world’s most well-known and beloved literary series. “Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn” will be released in the U.S. on December 23, 2011 and internationally in late October and early November 2011.


The film, distributed by Paramount Pictures and Sony Pictures Entertainment, utilizes state-of-the-art, next-generation performance capture. Ubisoft’s Montpellier studio will work with director and producer Steven Spielberg, producers Peter Jackson and Kathleen Kennedy, to develop a unique and thrilling game that is closely tied to the upcoming motion picture.

“We look forward to working with Ubisoft and the filmmakers to create exciting new interactive adventures for Tintin,” said Thomas Lesinski, President, Paramount Digital Entertainment. “The upcoming video game will reintroduce Tintin to a whole new generation of gamers.”

“We’re incredibly excited to have the opportunity to work on the Tintin game,” said Christian Salomon, Vice President of Worldwide Licensing at Ubisoft. “We’re honored to bring one of the world’s most iconic comic characters to life in this new title.”