New Tintin pictures!

I'm back from holiday now so updates should be more frequent. Apologies for the sporadic activity...

More pictures from Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn have been revealed in the new issue of Empire.

They give us our first glimpse of the Thomson Twins (played by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost). Also in their picture is Silk the thief (Toby Jones).

The shadowy textures and tilted camera angle in the above shot certain bear out Spielberg's assertion that the look of the Tintin film would hark back to film noirs.

The final new shot in Empire isn't so much film noir as a David Lean film epic. I'd find it hard to believe if Spielberg wasn't thinking of Lean's Lawrence of Arabia when he was composing this shot of Tintin in the desert, with sand dunes stretching as far as the eye can see.

Spielberg wanted to make an animated Harry Potter film

This isn't really news, but it's an interesting nugget of Steven Spielberg lore that fans may find intriguing.

In the LA Times' extensive coverage of the new Harry Potter film, an article discusses what Steven Spielberg had planned to do if he got the job of turning the books into a movie.

Spielberg being Spielberg, he was the first choice to helm Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone ("Sorcerer's Stone" in the USA), the opening film in what Warner Bros hoped would become a lucrative franchise.

The LA Times takes up the story...

Warner Bros. secured the rights for four “Harry Potter” novels for about $2 million. At that point, only the first book was on shelves in England and none had reached America. Warner Bros. tried to get a financial partner on the project, reaching out to studios including Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks, which passed.

Once the books became a sensation, greenlighting the first “Potter” film became a major priority at Warner Bros., where Alan Horn had recently taken over as president and Barry Meyer as chairman (replacing longtime studio chiefs Terry Semel and Bob Daly). DreamWorks circled back and proposed a partnership, but Horn wisely declined. There was one aspect of the DreamWorks talks that did intrigue him, however.

“I did think it would be worthwhile for Steven Spielberg to direct,” Horn said. “We offered it to him. But one of the notions of Dreamworks’ and Steven’s was, ‘Let’s combine a couple of the books, let’s make it animated,’ and that was because of the [visual effects and] Pixar had demonstrated that animated movies could be extremely successful. Because of the wizardry involved, they were very effects-laden. So I don’t blame them. But I did not want to combine the movies, and I wanted it to be live action.”

Spielberg instead took on Warner’s 2001 sci-fi film “A.I.: Artificial Intelligence,” and the Hogwarts post fell to Chris Columbus, director of “Home Alone” and “Mrs. Doubtfire,” who was then tapped for the job …

The LA Times story seems to suggest that Spielberg's animated take on the books wasn't to Warners' liking to they politely thanked him then started the search for another director. Compare that to quotes Spielberg gave to PageSix.com back in 2001:

"I purposely didn't do the Harry Potter movie because for me, that was shooting ducks in a barrel. It's just a slam dunk. It's just like withdrawing a billion dollars and putting it into your personal bank accounts. There's no challenge."

Whatever the case, I think Warner Bros probably the made the right choice on this one. As much as I love Steven Spielberg, an animated version of the novels sounds pretty terrible to me...

Harrison Ford won't rule out Indy 5

Harrison Ford has been discussing the possibility of a fifth Indiana Jones film while publicising his latest flick Morning Glory.

He told MTV News that he'd "love" to do another Indy film.

"It's on George's plate," Ford said. "And I'm hoping he's working hard at it, because I'd look forward to doing it again if the three of us could get together - George, Steven Spielberg, myself - I'd love to do another."

Asked about a possible plot (the Bemuda Triangle has been mentioned in the past) Ford grinned: "I'm not at liberty to tell you what I know and what I don't know."

Ford comments come a few month after his Crystal Skull co-star Shia LaBoeuf hinted that a fifth movie was on the cards.

"I got called into Steven's office, and he pitched a little bit to me and it sounds crazy," LaBeouf said in the summer. "It sounds really cool."

Read MTV's report here

I'm sure I wasn't the only one who felt a little bit disappointed by the last Indiana Jones film, so the possibility that Spielberg and co will give Indy the send-off he deserves is exciting - but I just can't get the image of Shia LaBoeuf swinging through the jungle with the monkeys out of my mind. *shudder*

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!

Official: Spielberg's next film will be...

Very exciting news broke from Deadline Hollywood today - Steven Spielberg has chosen his next film.

Deadline's Mike Fleming had the scoop that Spielberg will start shooting screenwriter Drew Goddard's adaptation of the Daniel H. Wilson's epic sci-fi novel Robopocalpse in January 2012. Disney's Touchstone will release the film in 2013 (I'm guessing in a prime summer slot).

According to the report, Spielberg has been tempted to film the novel since March last year, but due to the fact that the novel wasn't finished he put it on the backburner and concentrated his efforts on War Horse. That said, "Spielberg was so excited about it that it was already being storyboarded and designed as Wilson was turning in pages of the book and Goddard was translating them into the screenplay" Fleming reports.

Dreamworks have now confirmed the news with a press release:

Los Angeles, CA – Steven Spielberg is set to direct “Robopocalypse,” it was announced today by Mark Sourian and Holly Bario, Co-Presidents of Production for DreamWorks Studios. Based on the novel of the same name by Daniel H. Wilson, Spielberg will begin principal photography on the futuristic tale in January 2012. Disney’s Touchstone will distribute the film in 2013.

Exploring the fate of the human race following a robot uprising, “Robopocalypse” has been adapted for the screen by Drew Goddard.

DreamWorks acquired the rights to Wilson’s unpublished manuscript back in November 2009. Publishing rights were acquired by Doubleday and they plan to release the book in June 2011.

“’Robopocalypse’ embodies an imaginative story of a robot rebellion unleashed against the human race," said Mark Sourian. “This is a project we immediately sparked to and with Steven directing it we knew it was in the best possible hands to bring it to worldwide audiences.”

Robopocalypse has been a project that's been mentioned as a possible Spielberg directing gig since March last year and late last month the rumours started up again.

As far as Robopocalypse the novel is concerned, Deadline has this to say:
Doubleday will publish the book June, 2011. Wilson is hot stuff, in the kind of hi-tech sci-fi terrain that was the domain of Michael Crichton. His rep, Justin Manask, is preparing to shop his next book, AMP, which is a near-future science fiction thriller set in a world where the technology to make the disabled whole, turns them into supermen. That book will also be published by Doubleday, with 120 pages done so far. This one is being eyed for summer, 2012.

Robots are certainly terrain Spielberg has covered in the past with AI, but since that was a project originated by Stanley Kubrick and one Spielberg designed around production art that Kubrick created, I can't even imagine what he has in store.

Bring on summer 2013!

Keep checking back for updates as I get them...

Read Michael Fleming's full story here

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.

War Horse pushed from August to December 2011

In a move that puts War Horse firmly in the race for Oscars, Dreamworks has decided to shift the Steven Spielberg-directed film's release date from August 12 to December 28, 2011.

What this means for moviegoers, in the USA at least, is that they'll be treated to TWO new Spielberg-directed films within the space of a week. That's because Tintin, the top secret motion-capture collaboration between Spielberg and Peter Jackson, is due for release in North America on December 23.

The decision came after Disney and Dreamworks executives were shown footage from the World War One epic,which is currently being shot in England, according to a report by Indiewire's Anne Thompson.

Dreamworks' Stacey Snider said: “The movie feels like a holiday movie. {Steven Spielberg) feels great about it. We feel great about it.”

Snider also goes on to say that War Horse, which is expected to be rated PG-13, shouldn't conflict too much with Sony/Paramount's Tintin. “We think there’s room for a couple of holiday movies during that season,” said Snider. “It’s a big market at that time of year.”

For Spielberg fans in Europe, Latin America and India they'll see The Adventures Of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn first, in late October and November 2011.