Not only can Peter Jackson find nearly ten hours of material in a kid’s book and a few pages of notes, but the guy can apparently direct TWO action epics simultaneously!
That’s the director’s plan, if word out of a Belgian radio interview is to be believed. The director apparently stated that he’d shoot the motion-capture next year for the sequel to Tintin so that animation can roll on for a 2015 release. He’ll be doing this amidst development and additional shooting on The Hobbit material he convinced WB to let him shoot, and that will be merged with both of the remaining films in that trilogy.
To be fair, shooting the motion capture for a film like this is a relatively breezy process, and one that can be brought to Jackson. All they need is their tech, a studio, and the actors, so it’s not like he’s going to be stretching himself all that much. PJ’s machine is just that massive and tightly regimented at this point.
The film didn’t break down the doors in the states, but it was always the worldwide haul they were aiming for. With $375m in the bank across the globe for Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, they’ve got more than enough reason to march on with the master plan. Hell, the sequel will probably do better in the states anyway with the character now good and introduced, and lots of time to build a following on Blu-ray and Instant streaming (it’s doing well on both). The script is being written by children’s author Anthony Horowitz, based on elements from an unknown batch of Hegre stories. Professor Calculus is a likely character introduction, but not much more is out there at this point…
If PJ is indeed moving forward with this plan, expect more casting, a title, and confirmation of source stories to start dripping out after the first of the year, or even sooner.