Jackson Will Get To Work On TINTIN Sequel When He Finishes HOBBIT Duties

Those of you wondering when Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are going to get back to work on their trilogy of motion capture-animated films adapting the comic book The Adventures Of Tintin, wonder no more.

At the premier of The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug, Jackson stated to BadTaste.it (via Coming Soon) that he would be turning his attentions back to the films when he is done with his duties on his current film trilogy.

As soon as I’m free of The Hobbit, I’ll be going back into doing Tintin. It was held up by The Hobbit, but we have every intention of doing another Tintin movie and it’s just waiting on me to be done with these Hobbit movies.

Spielberg and Jackson’s original plan was to rotate producing and directing responsibility on the first two films of their planned trilogy. For 2011’s The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, Jackson served as producer while Spielberg directed the actors’ performances which served as the basis for the animation.

Initially the plan was for Jackson to direct the motion capture for the second Tintin film earlier this year before he had to start overseeing the post-production phase of Desolation Of Smaug. That was changed when Jackson needed to go into a period of shooting of additional material for Smaug and the third Hobbit film There And Back Again.

With Jackson effectively committed to There And Back Again all the way through 2014 until its December 17th opening. That would put production of the Tintin sequel at around early 2015 at best. Given the first film’s near two-year post-production phase, I don’t foresee the movie being able to meet its previously hoped for release period of Christmas-time 2015.

Although a modest success in the US, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn did good business overseas, where the source comic book series is more popular.