Jackson Talks “Tintin,” “Hobbit” Status

With the premiere last night in London for “The Lovely Bones”, the film’s director Peter Jackson was out doing press for the murder thriller. However it was his next two projects that most want to know about – the film versions of Herge’s “Tintin” graphic novel series and J.R.R. Tolkien’s literary classic “The Hobbit”.

As reported a few months ago, filming on the motion-capture “The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn” wrapped a while back after a super fast month-long shoot. Now however, Jackson says the film is already cut together with only nearly two years of animation ahead to complete.

“‘Tintin’ is great. It’s made. The movie is cut together and now [we] are turning it into a fully-rendered film. So the movie, to some degree, exists in a very rough state” said Jackson to a packed press conference which included The BBC.

In regards to “The Hobbit”, he and his co-writers have already finished the first film’s script and submitted it, and they’re now halfway through the second film’s script.

He adds that continuity will be kept between ‘Hobbit’ and his “Lord of the Rings” trilogy with much of the dialogue written in the same way, though director Guillermo del Toro will interpret the look and feel in his own way.

One good bit of news however is that despite all the 3D wizardy and fancy digital camera technology available, “Guillermo wants to shoot in 35mm, old-fashioned film, which suits me, because he wants to keep it in the same space as the original trilogy.”