MOTHER F&#%IN’ TINTIN!

I have no idea why it’s taken me so long to mention this.

By now, I’m sure most people have heard about the film versions of the classic Tintin books by Hergé that are coming out in the next few years.  For those who haven’t, here’s the lowdown:

As of right now, three films are planned.  All are being produced by Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson, with Spielberg directing the first, and Jackson the second, and the two co-directing the third.

While you let that soak in I’ll give you a quick once-over at the books they’re based on.

There are 24 books in all, written from 1929 to 1976, with one work unfinished and published posthumously.  The books tell the tales of a young Belgian reporter with his dog, Snowy, and their adventures straddling just about every genre imaginable.  Kind of a young Indiana Jones, almost.

The first was Tintin in the Land of the Soviets.

My grandmother got me a few of these books from her European travels when I was a kid and I absolutely loved them.  The only one I can definitely remember having was Cigars of the Pharaoh, from 1932.

Recently, my parents traveled to Europe and brought me back three of the hardcover French editions.  Sadly, four years of French in high school didn’t stick so well.  I can usually get the gist of what’s going on, and translate here and there, but I’m certainly not fluent.  Still, the books are incredibly enjoyable anyway.

So anyway, back to the films.  LIke most classic literature, it’s taken forever to even get this project off the ground.  Spielberg first got the rights in 1983 and had Melissa Mathison begin writing a script.  Like I mentioned above, he had pictured the stories as ”Indiana Jones for kids” and wished to have Jack Nicholson play Captain Haddock, Tintin’s best friend and partner.  He was ultimately dissatisfied with the script and went forward with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade instead.  The rights then returned to the Hergé Foundation, with unsuccessful attempts by Warner Bros. and even Roman Polanski to convince the Foundation that they would be able to faithfully recreate the books on the big screen.

In 2002 DreamWorks, under Spielberg, re-optioned the rights.  Peter Jackson expressed his interest in the project to Spielberg as well as the idea to use motion capture to make the films.  Andy Serkis, who played Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, was cast as Captain Haddock (brilliant choice, by the way, just check out his hilarious performance in Jackson’s King Kong remake) and one week of test filming was completed in 2007.

Then the ball really started to roll.  In October of ‘07 Steven Moffat, writer/creator of the BBC’s Coupling and Jekyll, along with being the new showrunner on Doctor Who, was named as the screenwriter for the project.  He was able to complete the script for the first film, but was unable to finish the second due to the writers’ strike.

One month before shooting was to begin, Universal withdrew their funding due to low box-office returns for the year.  This delay caused Thomas Sangster to have to drop out of the lead role due to scheduling conflicts.  So, as of October 31st, Sony was in negotiations to fund the film, with shooting scheduled to begin in February.

The big news that Ain’t It Cool broke on January 5th was that two of the supporting characters, Thomson and Thompson have been cast.  Thomson and Thompson are a pair of bumbling detectives, essentially the series’ comic relief, who look like twins, but always claim that they are not.  The best part?  Simon Pegg and Nick Frost of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz will be playing them.  Yeah, I know, ZOMG etc.  These films sounds better all the time.

Looks a little strange right now, but those two are brilliant together and should be a fantastic choice.

I absolutely can’t wait for these films – we’ll see how well the motion-capture tales of a Belgian photojournalist plays here in the US – but I know I’ll be there opening weekend for sure.

~ by skirkster on January 8, 2009.