Caffeinated Clint
Not surprisingly, considering it’s following back home, “The Adventures of Tintin” has shot to the top of the Aussie Box Office. Helps, of course, that said film had Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg as it’s creators.
Speaking to Melbourne’s The Herald-Sun today, Jackson talked a little about the future of the “Tintin” franchise and how he’s enjoying being back on Middle Earth for “The Hobbit”.
Firstly, Jackson explains how he became to take over directing duties from Guillermo Del Toro on “The Hobbit” and how the film has changed since swapping hands.
You’ve been editing the first Hobbit film, An Unexpected Journey over the Christmas break. You originally were not going to direct the films. When the job came back to you, did any part of you not want to take it because you thought you might be stuck in Lord of the Rings territory forever?
Not really. When Guillermo (Del Toro) was working on it I was producing it and working on the script – I was enjoying it, I wasn’t disliking it.
I thought it would be interesting to have a different sensibility directing the movie so you’d have somebody else’s version of a Middle Earth story. But by the time Guillermo left and we were wondering what to do, I just thought, ‘Well, I can imagine the version of The Hobbit that I’d like to see’.
It’s not necessarily the film he was going to make, but being part of the production for so long, at that point I’d sort of admitted to myself into the film to such a degree that it was fine to take over, I was completely OK with it.
We’ve got largely the same crew and quite a few of the same cast, so it was a reunion of sorts, which was kind of fun.
Jackson confirmed his plans to direct the “Tintin” sequel after he’s done with “The Hobbit” two-parter :
From the start there has been talk of at least three Tintin films, with you to direct the second one. Now that the film has done so well, is a sequel a forgone conclusion?
Well we’re just taking them one at a time, but the film’s certainly performed really great in the territories it’s screened in so far. So I think that the studio’s already pretty much got its heart set on a sequel.
Is that something you can’t even think about for at least another year, though, while your head is in Hobbiton?
The plan with another Tintin film is… you’d have to spend at least a year or 18 months developing the film from the point that we are now, so a lot of that development of the script and action scenes and things I can do while I’m in post-production on The Hobbit.
So the plan at this stage is to be in pre-production on the Tintin film while The Hobbit’s in post-production, and then once The Hobbit’s done I can do the motion-capture part of it.
Haven’t had a chance to see “Tintin” yet, what’s the word folks? Good?
