Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson whipped Hall H into a frenzy today appearing to promote their upcoming Chrissy release “The Adventures of Tintin”.
Spielberg walked out to thunderous applause; the filmmaker graciously said he “wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you”.
Spielberg explained that he first heard about “Tintin” when reading a French review of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” in which the comics were referenced. He calls the film a “cousin” to “Raiders”.
The filmmaker said he had to decide whether or not to do the film live-action or digitally; at the end of the day, the ‘dog’ looked better digitally.
“I have to make the decision do I shoot this live-action with a digital dog, or do I animated the film”, said Spielberg. So I want to Weta and asked them to do test. Show me a digital dog against a human character, especially with a costume. And that’s how I started this entire process… six years ago.”
The test is shown, it’s Peter Jackson decked out as Tintin with Snowy the dog running around him. Hilarious!
Peter Jackson then enters the room. “He shows a lot of promise”, Jackson jokes when asked about Spielberg.
Spielberg said they wanted the film to look and feel like the “Tintin” comics. “I think it was just getting the story told to the extent that we wanted the movie to look like Herge’s drawings.”
Jackson was a long-time fan. “I looked at Tintin when I was young as the older brother that I never had.”
A few clips from the film are shown; Tintin meets Haddock, Tintin asks about the Unicorn. Looks good!
Spielberg, who said he met Jackson when he handed him his Oscar for “Return of the King”, defended his use of mo-cap.. again and again. “Performance capture is not a medium that is right for every film, but is right for this story.”
The Q&A that followed saw Andy Serkis dress up as a fan and ask a question; someone also asked about “The Hobbit” (of course) and Jackson explained that they’re on a break at the moment from filming because Martin ‘Bilbo’ Freeman had to go back to the UK to shoot “Sherlock”; Spielberg said his fave movie to shoot was “E.T”; Peter Jackson said he’d be keen to return to horror movies one day;
.. and the big one? Spielberg announced that “Jurassic Park 4” now has a writer (later revealed to be “Thor” scribe Mark Protosevich ) and that it’s about two years away.
