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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.
I'm not at all familiar with the "Tintin" series, but I have a bad feeling about it already. Does anybody remember the end of AI? Yeah. I thought so.
--sdem
"Do something man. Right now."
I'm still waiting for the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series to be put to film...
You can't! No! They're sacred, damn it!
... Please...?
Adaptations of Asterix have been bad enough, especially those dreadful live-action ones with Depardieu...
I grew up on French comics, which I guess is some excuse, but... You just -can't- live action adapt Tintin. It'll be awful! Or at least, if they have to, in the name of all that is Holy -please- adapt them as cartoons...
Tintin is a classic series. Many people, myself included, view it with a romantic eye as a classic. I wasn't pleased when they made Asterix films, and I feel the same way for Tintin. Have they totally ran out of ideas??
Maybe...
Ben Afleck for Tintin?
Oh, and that boat guy has to be Sean Connery.
What makes a man want to be a mouse? (Python's Flying Circus)
1)Come up with a crappy idea for a movie.
2)Add Speilburg
3)Profit!
bilious blue blistering barnacles!
:-)
About time
These can't be worse than the Asterix live-action movies.
TinTin is a french cartoon that has been published for years. I remember reading it as a kid back in the 60's. It's even older than that and it shows.
I have seen a few TinTin movies later and I just can't deal with it. There is something un-funny about the whole thing.
Let's just hope that Spielberg can breath some new air into the old cartoon.
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
Speilberg is going to produce some stupid action film that glosses over all the subelties and ruins Tintin for the next generation.
Man I sound old.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
> Sounds like a story about a little dog.
Snowy is the dog. Tintin is da man.
The subject of this thread is the exact reason why Spielberg shouldnt do this film.
Not only do the youth culture of today (and lets face it, its the kids buying tickets that make the box-office money) have no idea who Cuthbert Calculus is, let alone Tintin,there is no way that Spielberg even at his best could make it appealing to the masses without totally destroying what the comic series was, and in the process annoying all the real fans. The Tintin style of story is not the Hollywood style of story, and neither are the characters. No-one (except perhaps the youngest of children) could find the bumbling antics of Thompson and Thomson actually funny when played by actors in a real live setting.
The comic format was just too integral to what made Tintin fun, as was Herge's talent and attention to detail, which Spielberg and Hollywood may have no patience for.
Do not meddle in the affairs of SysAdmins, for they are subtle and quick to anger.
As long as they don't pick a goofy voice for snowy. His thoughts were some of the funniest parts of the book, but he wasn't goofy. Closer to Brain than Scooby. He also found a lot of the clues, even if accidentally.
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
There is an older movie, Tintin and the Blue Oranges (1964) that was made for the big screen before...
It was quite boring though, and didn't feel at all like the comics.
My guess is that this new one will be an entertaining movie, but still miles away from the original Tintin envisionned by Hergé.
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
Nobody could say that with a straight face.. so Capt. Haddock can't be cast. Relax, man :)
The adventures of Tintin established the visual language now standard in comic strips and books: word and thought balloons, moving to the right to signify 'progress' and the left to signify failure, etc.
See Scott McCloud's history of comics for further praise.
What Spielberg will do to it, I have no idea. It is cited by him as an influence on Raiders.
Design for Use, not Construction!
I don't know what tintin is, but from the sounds of these posts, maybe we should send this one to "Steven Spielberg's non-union Mexican exquivalent" and keep it south of the border.
[2F31] A Star is Burns
Burns: Get me Steven Spielberg!
Smithers: He's unavailable.
Burns: Then get me his non-union Mexican equivalent! [later] Listen, Senor Spielbergo, I want you to do for me what Spielberg did for Oskar Schindler.
Spielbergo: Er, Schindler es bueno, Senor Burns es el diablo.
Burns: Listen, Spielbergo, Schindler and I are like peas in a pod: we're both factory owners, we both made shells for the Nazis, but mine worked, dammit! Now go out there and win me that festival!
-- Burns puts his foot down, "A Star is Burns"
Accapareur, amiral de bateau-lavoir, amphitryon, anacoluthe, analphabète, analphabète diplômé, anthropophage, anthropopitèque, apache, apprenti-dictateur à la noix de coco, arlequin, astronaute d'eau douce, athlète complet, autocrate,...
:)
Here is a complete list of "insults" (in french). He has quite a collection of them, each more entertaining than the other, and none are even remotely like f*ck, *ss, etc. All banal words from the dictionary, used creatively
Ahhh... I love Tintin. 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"). Aside from owning the whole collection, I have several older copies with my dad's dedication in them (got them for birthday gifts, etc) which makes them even more valuable to me.
I am also a fairly big fan of Spielberg - with E.T. being the first major movie I have ever seen, and I still remember going to see it (in Belgium) when I was 11 like it was yesterday! I just hope he doesn't screw this up!
Tintin is not a French comic, it's from Belgium.
Er, Tintin *is* a French comic -- it's in French! Just because it's from Belgium doesn't change that. If the Americans can speak English, the francophone Belgians certainly speak French.
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
... Not only do the youth culture of today (and lets face it, its the kids buying tickets that make the box-office money) have no idea who Cuthbert Calculus is, let alone Tintin...
/. had a story saying there'd be a Tintin movie.
The hell is this?
My youngest brother (14) knows who Tintin is. He borrowed them religiously from the school library until he had read every single one. His friends have read Tintin (he lent out his copies).
In fact, just a minute ago he was really excited because I just told him that
Maybe, just maybe, American children don't know who Tintin is. Maybe hes big in Europe (where we bought a half dozen Tintin books for the first time). Maybe Tintin isn't an American thing, so perhaps you've just got yourself a terribly narrow outlook on the world. Maybe.
It isn't a movie, but it's sort of like an adventure.
burning off the karma...
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
SCOOBY DO
* shudder *
One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
Haley Joel Osment as Tin-Tin
Robin Williams in a hilarious double casting as The Thompson Twins
Harrison Ford as Captain Haddock
Richard Attenborough as the Professor
And of course, a CGI "Snowy".
I can't wait!
Cthulhu Barata Nikto
Oh yay! I actually jumped from my chair when I heard this. Delight!
I adore Tintin. The sense of adventure and innocence is amazing. I hope he maintains the tenor and spirit of Hergé's creation.
What a thrill!
It's also crucial that they get just the combination of cute and mischievous for the actor. If it's Macauly Culkin or someone dippy like that, I'll be most disappointed.
That just made my very bad day.
I grew up on Herge's TinTin. The books (I decline to call them comics) were excellent, the large format and attention to detail in every frame was astounding, and the story-lines were remarkably mature for the audience they were supposedly aiming for at that time. And the animated cartoons that followed on were flawless reproductions of the books; if I close my eyes and concentrate I can still hear the opening theme... more than twenty years later.
Spielberg can't top this; there are just some things that if you try to imitate them you will only screw them up because the original is beyond imitation. I have a feeling this will turn out like the Batman series.. the first one will be just semi-OK and the rest will be banal marketing tripe used solely to stock toy store shelves at Christmas time.
He can film it if he wants, but I ain't gonna go see it.
That's one of the major problems I see: nobody will see the Thompson/Thomson juxtaposition. It was fundamental to their characters.
I just can't wait to see who does Castafiore. Calculus isn't that hard, Haddock will be fun, but Mme. C. has to be delightful.
A GOAT!? ME!?!!?
I'm still waiting for the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series to be put to film...
Translating a Choose Your Own Adventure book into the format closest to a movie produces laserdisc/DVD games similar to "Dragon's Lair".
Will I retire or break 10K?
Herge, the Belgian, (not French Belgian, "Je ne suis pas un maudit Francais madame, je suis un sale Belge,") who created Tintin must be turning in his grave.
Hollywood/Spielberg will make some clap-trap dumbed-down gets-the-girl-in-the-end rendition of something which doesn't belong anywhere but on the printed page.
Fuck, why does Hollywood insist on tearing the heads off all my memories and jerkin' off down the neck. I'm going to stay well away from this Anglofied doggerel.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Yes. France is a nation in Europe on Earth. Belgium is recognized galaxy-wide as a rude word. It's important to know the difference.
Jim Belushi as Captain Haddock.
Leonardo DiCaprio as Tintin, or, if Leo's too old, "Malcolm in the Middle."
Jim Carrey as Professor Calculus.
Robin Williams as Thompson & Thomson.
Snowy will be CGI, voiced by Ahmed Best.
please please please let it be Bruce Willis...:)
--- Why are you wearing that stupid bunny suit? | Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?
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
Spielberg makes airy fluff with lots of pretty things, let's not confuse this with art. Schindler's List is the pinnacle of his work, and for that his greatest decision was to follow the book almost to the letter (except for that excrable last scene in which survivors place stones on Schindler's grave). I will say that Saving provate Ryan was one of the most amazingly technically proficient films I have ever seen, with some incredible stunts, but that's melodrama, not good directing.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
it's not Disney.
(I just hope Spielberg will do his best...)
This may be karma-whoring but at least I'm giving credit where credit is due...
Wah!
AKA Ed Grimley
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Who says that they'll use actors? They could do it CGI or animation.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
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
I liked the "advanced" CYOA books, I believe the series I had was Escape from Tenopa or something to that effect. But my favorite game book series of all time was Lone Wolf. That series is now online as the copyright has returned to the author, and he has allowed them to be published on the web. They are still trying to secure the rights to some of the artwork though. The site is Project Aon. They still need some help proof reading some of the books before they are placed online.
Australians are much like Americans, with the exception that they don't even have Canada and Mexico to rermind them that they are not alone in the world.
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.
So, apparently the books are available as a collection now, but does anyone know where I can find Tintin in the UK English translations? (seriously)
Tintin has been translated into many languages, probably dozens. And, I can attest that there are both UK English editions and US English editions; however, the US English editions are horrible. I'm an American, so you can be assured that this isn't some wacky British pride clouding my judgement, but something was just not right in the US English versions.
So, does anyone know where I can buy the UK English editions of Tintin? Part of my problem is that, even if I can find Tintin for sale online (not that hard, I suppose), I'm not sure how to be certain which edition I'd be buying.
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
who should play thomson (thomson without a 'p' as in 'venzesuela')?
"Teachers leave us kids alone
no you aren't :)
I collect the 16 mm L&H films, but have most of the shows on DVD
"Teachers leave us kids alone
Aaah. CGI would be a nightmare. I can think of few worse ways to butcher it.
Animation would be neat if they could capture the whimsy and lightness of Hergé's art. That would be pretty slick. Of course the voices would have to be good, then =)
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.
oooh! is speilberg going to start at the series beginning with the deeply racist, pro-nazi, occupation-era 'tintin in the congo'? heh.
The Tintin comics also explicitly left out women from its plots except for Bianca who was more of an ogre than a woman ! Also, the Tintin comics had an excellent sense of humour. Thomson and Thompson, Snowy ,Haddok.. its possible. The movies may end up being a lot like the Indiana Jones movies - exotic locations such as Nepal and India, the supernatural touch , the scifi touch.
And as quite a few posts claim that Americans aren't familiar with Tintin, it might actually work regardless of the fact that it doen's even vaguely match the original Tintin. It would be looked upon as a new blockbuster...
My opinion - go for it!
|/________
|\A|ALYS|
I'm French-Canadian and I've read the Tintin comic-books about 10-20 times each since I was a tike. When I re-read these books as an adult, I take great pleasure in them, but I also see their limitations. Adapting them for a modern movie audience as the books *are*, they'll bomb. They will have to be re-written for the most part, and all I can see is that they'll be "Indiana Jones" knock-offs. It does not matter who'll produce/direct/write those films. They'll be anything *but* what Tintin is/was. I would prefer if they simply bought the rights to the Tintin name and write completely new stuff. At least I'd be mildly interested.
It was where I was first introduced to him, and, had I not checked out a few of the original graphic novels by Herge, I wouldn't have even known that Snowy was supposed to 'talk'. He was just animated as a rather intuitive dog, much like Brain on Inspector Gadget, less the intuitive hand gestures and knack for disguises. If I remember correctly, the animation was pretty true to the original artwork.
There's an episode breakdown for you here, for those of you who are interested. It is Ten years old, but it still runs occasionally on the weekends (up here on YTV)
I don't need to be made to look evil. I can do that on my own. - Christopher Walken
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>
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
it is discussed for many years...
in the sixties, there was "L'homme de Rio" (perhaps the man from Rio in english, but I'm not sure), that was very clearly(even the camera movements in the museum reproduce some cartoon pages) and officially inspired from Tintin adventures. (And I think it is a great film for youngsters(and grown-ups alike))
Spielberg and Lucas where interrested in buying rights. The result at the time was Indiana Jones.
I don't know if Spielberg is trying to renew the rights (he had in 1983) in order to make a film, or to prevent others to do so.
The Tintin Cartoons (shown in USA on HBO and nickelodeon) were fantastic! They were abridged, as they were geared more towards children, but they did a great job, and the voices were dead on to what I always imagined they would be. I have complete confidence in Spielberg (yes, I am bucking the slashdot/nerd trend of hating anyone/anything that is critically praied so that I can sound intelligent), but I question whether this needs to be done, since the cartoons themselves were so great...
I hope they don't change the story of the comics too much... If you only knew how much effort and research Herge, the creator of Tin-Tin, put in to his comics. For instance, in the episode "On a Marche sur la Lune" (We have walked on the moon) captain Haddocks drink starts to float out of his cup when the artificial gravity is swithed off. The boose takes the form of a bubble. Nobody had ever seen that before in real life. When Haddock gets detached from the ship he floats alongside of the spaceship (and does not lag behind). Also, the characters hop over the moon in stead of walk. Remember, this was before Neal ever set foot on the moon. So if they do put the scissors into the story I know Herge is going to, as we say, turn around in his grave.
P.S. In Flanders (Vlaanderen) and the Netherlands Tin-Tin is called "Kuifje" (cowlick,quiff) because of his unusual hairdo.
P.S.2: Some years ago, there was a TV-series (cartoon) made from the Tin-Tin stories. Luckely they were smart and did not make any changes in the original storyline.
The problem with these movies is that the actors did not have the same voices as in the books !
(This was said by a kid when the movie got out, and I think I agree with him)
Anyway, it is astonishing how much Jean-Pierre Talbot looks like Tintin. Well, this was the only reason why he was hired for the job, as he does not seem to have played in any other movie before or afterwards.
That's anyway better than to have Christian Clavier as Asterix (sigh)
McCartney fans pay bus tickets. [...] Lennon fans too, with discretion.
You managed to write a two syllable word with two distinct spelling errors. Congrats.
There's an aminated version of Tintin that ran on Cartoon Network last year. It captured the feel of the comics well. I think the live action version will suck, but its possible it could succeed
It really sucks that they changed most of the names. I hope the movie will have the original names back.
True warriors use the Klingon Google
I guess drooling over special effects in an otherwise lousy movie - that'd be almost anything sci-fi from Hollywood - makes people look pretty shallow. "Ooh, shiny things, I'll see that!"
IMO, of course.
You're a suburbanite.
It wasn't actually Tintin. It was Tintin and co done up American Superhero style. The lead character looked like Duke Nukem, with the little curl of hair on his forehead. He had a big white fighting animal thing with horns. The other characters were similarly buffed. They appeared and made some heroic rescue of the comics title characters (I think they may have died in the rescue, don't remember that well).
Anyone know what that comic was?
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
Anyone else remember that hilarious Tintin satire in National Lampoon about 20 years back, "Tintin Goes to Lebanon?" Brilliant. They really nailed down the artwork. It's been years since I've read it, but it ended up with Tintin being safe on an American battleship off the Lebanon coast while then-Vice President Bush let Tintin launch a cruise missile that nuked Beirut.
Everyone associated with the LOTR films is cursed and I wish the same on whoever makes a Tintin film.
Not that you've seen the special features on the extended DVD, but Christopher Lee specifically talks about his meeting JRRT and receiving permission to play Gandalf if LotR was ever made into a movie. That might lead one believe that JRRT didn't necessarily take "...a lot of trouble to build a beautiful, complex world that cannot be duplicated on film." So while you don't feel that it can be well represented on screen, it most likely wasn't the opinion of JRRT.
Also, having seen the effort that Peter Jackson put into the films, I think he deserves some credit for bringing the story to a whole new generation who might never have read the books.
(And by the by...I can speak from experience that if you've read the books more than 10 times, you don't lose your own vision of the story by seeing the film).
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
"Ditto with Herge. The art can't be duplicated on film the way it can be drawn (witness "The Lake of Sharks" film), and any attempts at portraying the characters dilute them (e.g. what voice do you imagine Captain Haddock to have?)."
I disagree. It's a very long time since I have seen that movie so I won't comment on that, but the Tintin world can certainly be translated on film as was proven by a series of anime made by a franco-canadian cooperation in the 90's, it was (and is) really good stuff.
Now to know if Hollywood can refrain from screwing things up or to know if it is even possible to make it live action at all without screwing it up is another question, but I am not expecting much intil the shootong begins and we can talk about something abit more concrete.
BTW, the names used in the English version suck IMAO.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
"Not that you've seen the special features on the extended DVD, but Christopher Lee specifically talks about his meeting JRRT and receiving permission to play Gandalf if LotR was ever made into a movie."
;)
Yeah, but did he get the permission to play Saruman
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
Doesn't really matter for the Walloons and French, since they have the uncanny habit of dubbing every single film.
[/TONGUE_IN_CHEEK]
I must admit that it'll be difficult to adapt to the English names for our (Belgian) heros :-)
Okay... I'll do the stupid things first, then you shy people follow.
[Zappa]