Peter Jackson has announced he will return to directing with a sequel to 2011’s The Adventures of Tintin.
The New Zealand-born filmmaker, 64, is best known for helming the Oscar-winning Lord of the Rings trilogy that was released between 2001 and 2003.
He has not directed a feature film since his Hobbit trilogy, which was released between 2012 and 2014. He has since worked on documentaries such as his 2018 World War II film They Shall Not Grow Old and the 2021 Beatles archival film Get Back.
Speaking to Gold Derby, Jackson revealed that he plans to return to the director’s chair for a follow-up to Steven Spielberg’s animated adaptation of the popular Belgian comic book series and said that he has been working on a script with his partner Fran Walsh.
“Fran and I have been writing a script for the next Tintin film because 15 years ago, Steven Spielberg directed a Tintin film and I produced it,” said Jackson.
He continued: “The idea was that then I was supposed to go straight onto a second one, and we’d swap the roles, so I’d direct the second one and he’d produce it. It’s just taken 15 years to get there, unfortunately, a bit late. But it’s a timeless story. So we just wrapped up. So probably the next film that I’d actually direct is a Tintin movie.”
The Adventures of Tintin was filmed using a “performance capture” technique and starred Jamie Bell as Tintin, Andy Serkis as Captain Haddock and Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as Thomson and Thompson.
The result divided critics, with The Independent’s Geoffrey Macnab arguing that the technique resulted in characters who “look uncannily like the drawings kids of many different generations will remember from the Hergé cartoons” but that “the drawback is that these faces are as inexpressive as masks.”
The original film was released with the subtitle The Secret Of The Unicorn, which suggested plans for a franchise.
After referring to Jackson’s proposed sequel, Macnab added: “The first episode is effective enough in delivering a fairground ride-style adventure. It's an old-fashioned family movie with an appeal likely to stretch across generations. One of its pleasures is how gingerly it skips between genres, combining elements of swashbucklers (Captain Haddock's ancestor's epic sword fight), fantasy adventures along The Thief of Bagdad lines, spy movies and slapstick comedy.
“The formal ingenuity is often breathtaking. This, though, is not a movie that tugs at the emotions in any way. Compared to Spielberg's more personal efforts, it can't help but feel machine-made and even a little perfunctory.”
