Tintin Is Cast!
Steven Spielberg has finally found his Tintin and his name is… Jamie Bell. Yep, Billy Elliot. After spending the past few years in indie film wilderness, it seems that Spielberg and producer Peter Jackson are prepared to gamble on the young actor and bring him back into the spotlight.
The all 3-D motion capture film has also added Daniel Craig, who you may recognise from the latest Bourne film. Craig is set to play a villain, interestingly, pirate Red Rackham. This rounds out the cast list of Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Toby Jones, Andy Serkis and Mackenzie Crook.
The film is now titled The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, based on the book of the same name. It revolves around tintin attempting to buy a model ship for his mate Captain Haddock, but it turns out to be a container for directions to secret buried treasure. Sounds like a call to adventure!
No word yet on whether this film will cover just the first book, or if it will also feature the immediate sequel Red Rackham’s Treasure, but with a trilogy planned and Peter Jackson pencilled in to take over the director’s duties for the second film, things are looking bright.
Still not excited? The script was written by Coupling supremo-turned Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright and funnyman Joe Cornish. Hurry up and release it, already!
Source: Empire
1st Tintin Movie Release Date
So how’s the pension looking? All in good shape? Glad to hear it. Getting towards holiday time, you got anything booked? Of course you have. And next year as well?! Crikey, someone’s well organised. Y’know, I was thinking we might catch up for a drink next week… okay, well you check all three of your events diaries and get back to me. Yes, for all those relentless T-1000s of forward-planning out there, today was a very good day, as they were given leave by Sony and Paramount to deposit a big fat red ‘X’ in their calendar two years hence – this particular piece of demarcation signaling the freshly-announced official release date for the first installment in the keenly anticipated 21st century cinematic interpretation of carrot-quiffed boy reporter Tintin.
The 23rd December 2011 has been named as the date from which American cinema audiences will get to check out the first film in the series - the Steven Spielberg-helmed The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn (I initially misread this title and got unfeasibly excited as I imagined the squeaky-voiced teen facing off against the Orson Welles-voiced, planet-chomping mega-robot from Transformers: The Movie, in what surely would have been the mother, father and both grandparents of all crossovers). And, reflecting Tintin’s international appeal, the movie will make its bow outside the States a couple of months earlier, with the flick hitting the UK and elsewhere in late October/early November.
It is perhaps fitting we Brits will get the chance to cast our discerning peepers over Secret of the Unicorn first (er, is the secret that they don’t exist?), with the production having a decidedly Anglocentric look about it. Jamie Bell takes on the title role, while Nick Frost and Simon Pegg will try to look identical as Thompson and Thompson. There is a part for 007 hisself, Daniel Craig, and Andy Serkis plays Captain Haddock, while the script was penned by Doctor Who scribe Steven Moffat, before receiving a polish from Edgar Wright and that Radio 6 Saturday morning titan of the airwaves, Joe Cornish.
A confirmed sequel will see megaphone duties passing to Peter Jackson (ugh, Peter Jackson directing a movie with Andy Serkis as a salty seadog – I’m having a King Kong flashback. The horror, the horror…), with a rumoured trilogy-closer then being directed by the two beards in tandem. Shot using motion-capture technology and with a lengthy post-production schedule, the Tintin movies (based, of course, on the famous series of comic books by Hergé) will be released in 3D, and when it finally turns up in your local multiplex you certainly can’t say you haven’t been warned.
Sources: Variety
Simon Pegg & Nick Frost Cast In Spielberg’s Tintin
British comedy actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost have been cast as the Thompson Twins in at least one of Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg’s two Tintin movies.
The duo, who have played alongside each other hilariously in both ‘Shaun of the Dead’ and ‘Hot Fuzz’ will play near-identical twins in the motion capture adventure flick.
The 3-D performance-capture films, based on Georges Remi’s comic books and co-financed by Sony Pictures Entertainment and Paramount Pictures, will center on Tintin’s globetrotting adventures as a fearless reporter. In the books, the Thompson Twins are a pair of incompetent, clumsy detectives who can only be told apart by the shape of their moustaches — Thompson, with a “p,” has a flat moustache, while Thomson, without the “p,” has a flared version.
The casting was confirmed by Dawn Sedgwick, Pegg’s agent in London, who was unable to confirm if the Twins would appear in both pics.
As previously reported, Andy Serkis will play Tintin’s sidekick Captain Haddock. Tintin has yet to be cast. Thomas Sangster had been set for the role, but exited the project when it was delayed due to funding difficulties caused by the DreamWorks/Paramount split.
I can see why these two have been picked out play these roles. When casting a motion capture film, you need actors that are able to express themselves through physicality as well as vocally, and these two are definite masters of the pratfall (anyone who has seen their previous collaborations can attest to that) and are pretty much hilarious in every way.
Slightly disappointed to see Andy Serkis in the role of Tintin’s sidekick as opposed to Tintin himself, as possibly the world’s most accomplished motion capture artist I can’t think of anyone better for the role (if he can convincingly play both Gollum and King Kong I’m pretty sure he can do anything).
