Tintin finally revealed ... and a letter from Steven Spielberg

I go away on holiday for two weeks and all hell breaks loose regarding Steven Spielberg!

Empire have got the biggest Spielberg scoop of the year with today´s unveiling of the first glimpse of the CGI characters from The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (due in UK cinemas in October 2011).

Created by Peter Jackson´s visual effects company Weta, the images provide us of our first look at Tintin, his loyal dog Snowy and Captain Haddock.

The article on the Empire website (and in full in the next issue) also has quotes from Spielberg about the plot of the film, the first in his career to be fully motion-captured.

Spielberg says: “The first part of the film, which is the most mysterious part, certainly owes much to not only film noir but the whole German Brechtian theatre — some of our night scenes and our action scenes are very contrasty. But at the same time the movie is a hell of an adventure.”

Peter Jackson had this to say about the look of Tintin:

“With live action you’re going to have actors pretending to be Captain Haddock and Tintin. You’d be casting people to look like them. It’s not really going to feel like the Tintin Hergé drew. It’s going to be somewhat different. With CGI we can bring Hergé’s world to life, keep the stylised caricatured faces, keep everything looking like Hergé’s artwork, but make it photo-real.”

Read the full article, along with two other pictures from the film, on the Empire website.

Since I´m typing this on the computer in the lobby of a hotel and my alloted time is ticking down really fast, I thought I squeeze the another bit of Spielberg news.

It seems that he has finished shooting parts of his other big 2011 release, War Horse, on and around Dartmoor in England.

To thank the locals for their support he wrote a letter to the Plymouth Evening Herald and spoke of the "abundance of natural beauty" in the area.

Steven Spielberg wrote: "I have never before, in my long and eclectic career, been gifted with such an abundance of natural beauty as I experienced filming War Horse on Dartmoor.

"And, with two-and-a-half weeks of extensive coverage of landscapes and skies, I hardly scratched the surface of the visual opportunities that were offered to me.

"We have had an incredibly successful shoot and every member of our substantial crew has commented on what a great experience the shoot in Dartmoor has been.

"We faced many logistical challenges working in the narrow lanes and villages on Dartmoor with our extensive film unit.

"The patience and support of the local community was critical in allowing us to safely and quickly move from place to place in search of the best shots and the best light to shoot them.

"We wanted to thank all the residents of Sheepstor and Meavy and the surrounding communities on Dartmoor for their support throughout our stay in Devon, without their help co-operation and patience we would not have been able to achieve so much in such a short space of time."

So there we go - two big bits of Spielberg news that broke while I was thousands of miles away from my home computer. Just typical!

Spielberg + Bee Gees = Total BS

I don't quite know why I'm reporting this, but it's almost so crazy a rumour it's actually funny.

The UK's Daily Mail - easily one of the most disreputable tabloids in Britain - is reporting that Steven Spielberg is going to be making a movie based on the life story of The Bee Gees.

The only problem is, when you read the article it contains absolutely no facts to back up that statement.

The report, which is written as though the journalist has a source within the Spielberg camp ("The Oscar-winning director of ET believes the group’s journey from unknowns in Manchester to worldwide fame will prove box-office gold...") does have a quote from Bee Gee Robin Gibb, but even that has zero mention of Steven Spielberg.

"The movie is going to be done by some very important people," he says. "It will be our life story. Barry and I will be involved in the technical side."

So how the Daily Mail made the leap to Spielberg is anybody's guess.

Over the years Steven Spielberg has expressed an interest in doing a musical (before Hook, Spielberg's take on the Peter Pan story was to be a musical collaboration with Michael Jackson), but if this bizarre rumour ever comes true I will happily listen to the Bee Gees' back catalogue on repeat for 48 hours while being waterboarded.

Judge clears Spielberg in Disturbia lawsuit

A judge has cleared Steven Spielberg of stealing the plot for Disturbia from a short story.

Although the two films definitely share similarities - both are about someone who is confined to his home and becomes convinced that his neighbour is a killer - New York district court judge Laura Taylor Swan ruled that "the main plots are similar only at a high, unprotectable level of generality".

The suit was launched by the Sheldon Abend Revocable Trust, which manages the estate of the late author Cornell Woolrich. The writer's short story It Had to be Murder formed the basis for Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954).

The trust filed its complaint against Spielberg, DreamWorks and distributors Paramount Pictures back in 2008 and claimed that the short story's plot had been used without obtaining the Trust's permission.

But Swan added: "Where Disturbia is rife with sub-plots, the short story has none. The setting and mood of the short story are static and tense, whereas the setting and mood of Disturbia are more dynamic and peppered with humour and teen romance."

Update: More War Horse set pictures hit the web!

Another batch of photographs of Steven Spielberg hard at work on the set of his new movie War Horse have gone online today.

They're similar to the last lot I linked to, but these give a much clearer view of the set and actors. Can anyone spot any familiar faces? I assume Janusz Kaminski is the DP, but couldn't see him in any of the photos taken of the camera rig...

Visit the SWNS website to see the full gallery.

First pictures of Spielberg on War Horse set!

As expected the first pictures of Steven Spielberg on the War Horse set in England emerged online today.

The photographs, published in The Herald newspaper in Plymouth, show Spielberg - in trademark leather jacket, cap and sunglasses - on the outskirts of a moorland village called Meavy.

A photo gallery on the newspaper's website shows a relaxed-looking Spielberg chatting with crew members, along with photographs of a brown horse (is this the War Horse of the title?)

The story doesn't make it clear whether filming has actually started yet (I don't know whether Spielberg would have been quite so relaxed with the cameras being there if it had) or whether he was just on set to oversee the final preparations.

Lynsey Glazier, who works at the Royal Oak pub in Meavy, told the newspaper: "A lot of the crew working on the set have been coming in for lunch. They have all been really nice people.

"There's a real buzz around here. I don't think we've seen any of the actors yet but it is early days. The set is just being put together. It's quite exciting."

Check out The Herald website for the full story and more pictures.

War Horse is due for release on August 10, 2011.

E.T. named the greatest film of all time

I'm not a big fan of polls, so I don't know why I'm posting this but it does definitely classify itself as Spielberg news.

The UK's Press Association has the news that ET has been named the greatest film of all time by TV listings magazine Radio Times.

Steven Spielberg's ET The Extra-Terrestrial was voted the greatest film of all time in a survey published today.

The story of an alien trapped on Earth trying to get home topped the poll of more than 2,500 people for radiotimes.com.

Movie expert Barry Norman described the sci-fi classic as "the perfect family film".

He told the Radio Times it was "a magical tale for children, a triumph of special effects, a chastening lesson to bigots everywhere and, as the director Steven Spielberg describes it, a simple and pure love story".

ET won four Oscars in 1983 but was beaten to the Best Picture award by Richard Attenborough's Gandhi.

The Wizard Of Oz came second in the online survey, followed by Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Toy Story.

No Terra Nova until Fall 2011

Fox Television today announced that Steven Spielberg's ambitious dino-drama Terra Nova won't premiere in full until Fall 2011.

Mirroring the same release strategy that helped turn Glee into the mega-hit that it is, Fox will preview the pilot episode (directed by Alex Graves) post-American Idol in May then the full series will run at the end of the year.

Here's the press release:

NEW EPIC FAMILY ADVENTURE “TERRA NOVA” TO PREVIEW IN MAY
PRIOR TO PREMIERING ON FOX IN FALL 2011
Series Executive-Produced by Steven Spielberg, Peter Chernin,
Brannon Braga, David Fury, Jon Cassar, Aaron Kaplan, Katherine Pope,
Justin Falvey, Darryl Frank, Craig Silverstein and Kelly Marcel
Alex Graves To Direct Pilot Episode
With Series Set to Film On Location in Australia
Jason O’Mara Confirmed in Lead Role
TERRA NOVA, the new family adventure drama series executive-produced by Steven Spielberg, Peter Chernin, Brannon Braga and David Fury, will preview in May 2011 on FOX prior to its series premiere in the fall.
Jason O’Mara (“Life on Mars”) has been cast in the lead role of JIM SHANNON, the patriarch of the show’s central family. As previously announced, Emmy Award winner Alex Graves (FRINGE) will direct the pilot, and Emmy Award-winning executive producer and director Jon Cassar (“24”) has joined the series as an executive producer and series director.
“TERRA NOVA will be one of the most visually stimulating and dramatically grand series to air on network television,” said Kevin Reilly, President of Entertainment, Fox Broadcasting Company. “It deserves to have an equally unique launch to distinguish that the show is unlike any other, and the spring promotional platform will give us the perfect opportunity to introduce this bold show to audiences.”
TERRA NOVA, an epic family adventure 85 million years in the making, follows an ordinary family embarking on an incredible journey back in time to prehistoric Earth as a small part of a massive experiment to save the human race. In the year 2149 the world is dying. The planet is overdeveloped, overcrowded and overpolluted. Knowing there is no way to reverse the damage to the planet, a coalition of scientists has managed to open up a fracture in the space-time continuum, creating a portal to prehistoric Earth. This doorway leads to an amazing world, one that allows for a last-ditch effort to save the human race…possibly changing the future by correcting the mistakes of the past.
The series centers on the Shannon family as they join the tenth pilgrimage of settlers to TERRA NOVA, the first colony of humans in this second chance for civilization. JIM SHANNON (O’Mara), a devoted father with a checkered past, guides his family – wife ELISABETH and children JOSH and MADDY – through this new land of limitless beauty, mystery and terror. In addition to blue skies, rolling rivers and lush vegetation, TERRA NOVA offers new opportunities and fresh beginnings to its recent arrivals, but the Shannons have brought with them a familial secret that may threaten their citizenship in this utopia. These adventurers soon discover that this healthy, vibrant world is not as idyllic as it initially appears. The areas surrounding TERRA NOVA are filled with dangerous dinosaurs and other prehistoric threats, as well as external forces that may be intent on destroying this new world before it begins.
TERRA NOVA is produced by 20th Century Fox Television, DreamWorks Television, Kapital Entertainment and Chernin Entertainment. Steven Spielberg, Peter Chernin, Brannon Braga, David Fury, Jon Cassar, Aaron Kaplan, Katherine Pope, Justin Falvey, Darryl Frank, Craig Silverstein and Kelly Marcel serve as executive producers. Alex Graves will direct the pilot episode.