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Spielberg to Produce Live-Action Tintin Movie (s)
jtauber writes "Looks like the Adventures of Tintin may be the next series of books to be turned into a film franchise with Spielberg in talks to acquire the rights. See the Marlinspike for more information." Tintin was one of my favorite "book" type comics growing up - and they've released collections.
Tintin has already made it to the screen a looong
time ago; there were a couple of movies if I
remember correctly -- twas in the early 70s -- not
adaptations of existing books, but new stories
written for that purpose by Herge ("Tintin et la
toison d'or" is one of the title I remember,
it was taking place in Greece); it was not too
bad precisely because it was a purpose made story
and not an attempt at adapting existing books;
and there was at least one long cartoon which
title I don't remember -- a story about Tournesol
inventing a Startrek like replicator, with
underwater scene at the bottom of an artificial
lake, anyone remembers? (twas not these short
low quality cartoons one see occasionaly on
French tv these days);
--Giraldus
I grew up on French comics, which I guess is some excuse, but...
Tintin is not a French comic, it's from Belgium. Herge (Tinin's belgian author) laid down the foundation of an entire school of belgian comic writers.
DZM
> Sounds like a story about a little dog.
Snowy is the dog. Tintin is da man.
For those who are interested, a brief rundown of Tintin's history on the big (and small) screen can be found at http://www.tintin.qc.ca/english/cinema.htm
1) Every
2) Article
3) Has
4) One
5) Of
6) These
7) Anoying
8) Steps
9) List
2 live action Tintin films have already been made a long time ago. They might be interesting to fans, but if memory serves they are pretty bland adaptations. Of course, we're talking movies made in 1961 and 1964 respectively. The special effects budget went to making the movies in color I'd wager. :)
The movies are Tintin et le mystère de la toison d'or and Tintin et les oranges bleues. You can even find them in DVD on amazon.fr
Stop me if I am wrong (and I could, english is not my native language), but when you put a "French" adjective (with a capital letter) you mean "from France" and not "in french".
Actually, in English, all references to names of languages are capitalized. One speaks in English or French (and not in english or french)
Most, if not all have been released on DVD in France; i.e. amazon.fr
Plus, they come with English and Spanish audio tracks and subtitles! The only "problem" is their region (if you don't live in Europe, Japan, South Africa, or the Middle East).
Tintin is much more of an episodic adventure story, similar to cliffhangers. The posters who state that it's like 'Indiana Jones' are fairly correct. Tintin is told on a much more juvenille scale.
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Bill Watterson will *never*, *ever*, permit Calvin and Hobbes to be licensed. He has said this explicitly in interviews and in the introduction to the Calvin & Hobbes tenth anniversary book. He maintains that 'spin-off' products (cartoons, calendars, mugs, etc) are only cash cows which add nothing to the original vision of the comic strip. They ruin the integrity of the strip and reduce the characters to 'advertising hucksters' (actual quote) whose insights on life can no longer be taken seriously.
Bill Watterson said NO to literally MILLIONS of dollars because he believed the integrity of his strip was worth more.
That, my friends, is something you don't see anymore; I respect him greatly for his decision, which has gone unheralded and ignored and even mocked by some.
iopha
Too late...
There was one already in 1961, and another in '64.
in the name of all that is Holy -please- adapt them as cartoons...
Hmmm...that would be 1969 and 1972
Adaptations of Asterix have been bad enough, especially those dreadful live-action ones with Depardieu...
Shut up, the first one was rather lame, but the one with Cleopatra totally captured the comic's feel, and was so close to the animated version too (wich I'll just assume you haven't seen).
You can't take the sky from me...
Does anybody remember the end of AI? Yeah. I thought so.
AI?! How about 1941? Let's hope his adaptation of Tintin is less whimsical.
There's a list in English available here.
Great stuff. (Anacoluthons! Hydrocarbon! Technocrat! Odd-toed ungulate!)
Being Belgian I grew up on these "comics" (a term that really doesn't do justice to the art, at least not the Begian/French kind of "comics").
A term has been coined which, IMHO, does accurately describe the art form which includes Tintin.
"Graphic Novel"
(It has the same relation to a written novel that a stage play or feature movie has to an oral storyteller's story or radio drama.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
"More than ever, Hergé was leaning toward live-action movies. "Because that's the way I see it" he said to a journalist from L'Express, "My Tintin is alive, my Captain Haddock as well. But such movies should be produced with budgets equivalent to those a James Bond movie". And isn't it a project of that sort that Steven Spielberg brought to the screen in 1980 with Raiders of the Lost Ark? Although Indiana Jones, embodied by Harrison Ford, does not resemble the young reporter and his golf knickers, many scenes of the movie look as if they come from the adventures of Tintin or Blake et Mortimer. Quite strangely though, it seems that the references to classic Belgian comics are not coming from Hergé's or Jacobs' stories but from a cinematographic intermediary. Indeed, while preparing his own movie, Spielberg screened L'Homme de Rio a dozen times.
In 1982, Spielberg went one step further by proposing to acquire the rights to adapt The Adventures of Tintin. While weakened by an illness which would take him a few months later, Hergé expressed a strong interest in the venture, hoping that Spielberg would be granted all necessary liberties. But the director of Duel, unconvinced by the first script written by Melissa Matheson, soon decided to take on a production role and leave the directing to Europeans. Many names came up and among them, Jean-Jacques Beineix. But soon, the choice turned to Roman Polanski who said that he always wanted to make a Tintin movie. Wasn't one of the characters of Pirates a sort of Captain Haddock? Polanski declared his preference for King Ottokar's Sceptre, a story full of personal meanings. Nevertheless this project never took off and in 1987, Spielberg abandoned his option on the rights (at about the same time the Franco-Vietnamese producer Lâm Lê abandoned the idea of adapting La Marque Jaune from Edgar Jacobs)."
"Shared pain is lessened; shared joy is increased. Thus we refute entropy" - Spider Robinson
A friend of mine has a very comprehensive Tintin site there: http://www.tintin.qc.ca/ . If you really want to get to know Tintin, this is the best place to see.
Well, the good news is that they won't have trouble finding a set for Captain Haddock's Chateau de Moulinsarart-- it already exists. Of course, in real life it's known as the Chateau Cheverny and has a couple of large additions on the sides.
But I'm sure a little digital editing magic and they'll have a great set.
Daredevil is hardly obscure. He's one of Marvel's oldest characters with a long running series.
I remember seeing a French live action Tintin movie on the French channel here in Canada at least a decade ago. It was made in the early sixties and I saw it at least a decade ago. Oh yeah! Tintin et le mystère de la toison d'or(1961) with (according to imdb) a much weaker sequel, Tintin et les oranges bleues (1964). The other Tintin movies listed by imdb (made in '69 and '70's) were cartoon adaptations, but I guess either they were never dubbed for N.A. English audiences or you were too young and they haven't been re-run since.
Of course, the cool thing about these movies is that they weren't sanitized for Poli. Corr. Haddock is a drunk and, although it sometimes makes him stumble onto important clues, it usually gets him into trouble or is ridiculed for comic relief.
<rant> I understand that some people who have been victims of abuse at the hands of drunks feel the subject is not funny. However, ridiculing alcohol abuse is more likely to be an effective deterrent to children than pretending it doesn't happen. Unfortunately, many cautionary tales also have been sanitized from modern culture with, I suspect, the end result of children more susceptible to exploitation by unscrupulous individuals. </rant>
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