Tuesday, May 15, 2007

The Tin Tin Team

On the heels of news that Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson were going to collaborate to bring the novel The Lovely Bones to the big screen--comes word today--the pair will also work on another high profile adaptation...

Anne Thompson and Pamela McClintock of Variety:



Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are teaming to direct and produce three back-to-back features based on Georges Remi's beloved Belgian comic-strip hero Tintin (pictured) for DreamWorks. Pics will be produced in full digital 3-D using WETA Digital’s groundbreaking performance capture technology.

The two filmmakers will each direct at least one of the movies; studio wouldn't say which director would helm the third. Kathleen Kennedy joins Spielberg and Jackson as a producer on the three films, which might be released through DreamWorks Animation.

Tintin has long been a passion project for Spielberg; he and Kennedy have held various film rights to the comedic adventure book series off and on for more than 25 years. With the rights in place, Spielberg, Jackson and DreamWorks began quietly developing the project. Jackson has also long been a fan of the comic books.

Jackson's New Zealand-based Weta Digital Ltd, the f/x house behind "The Lord of the Rings" franchise, produced a 20-minute test reel bringing to life the characters created by Remi, who wrote under the pen name of Herge.

"Herge's characters have been reborn as living beings, expressing emotion and a soul which goes far beyond anything we've seen to date with computer animated characters," Spielberg said.

"We want Tintin's adventures to have the reality of a live-action film, and yet Peter and I felt that shooting them in a traditional live-action format would simply not honor the distinctive look of the characters and world that Herge created," Spielberg continued.

Read the entire story here...

Growing up, I was certainly aware of the characters, but I was never really a huge fan. That said, it will be interesting to see what Spielberg and Jackson come up with, to bring that unique universe to life on the big screen.

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