With Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackon‘s “The Adventures Of Tintin” currently blowing up the box office overseas, sequel talk has already started, even though followup plans were always in the works. As Spielberg revealed last week, Sony and Paramount have given the directing duo enough funds to at least develop a script and do all the visual storyboards to get the next film ready to go as soon as they get a greenlight. Jackson has already said he intends to direct after he wraps up with “The Hobbit.” But the question remains, just what the actual story will be.
When author Anthony Horowitz was hired last fall to pen the sequel, word was he was writing “The Adventures Of Tintin: Prisoners of the Sun,” a story that would mash up two Tintin adventures—“The Secret of the Unicorn” and “Red Rackham’s Treasure.” And while he’s done just that, he reveals to the BBC (via Bleeding Cool) that ‘Prisoners’ might be used for the third film, and he may be penning an as yet undetermined story for the second entry in the series.
“That was true a few months ago,” Horowitz said, “but I can tell you that I think the second film is not going to be ‘Prisoners of the Sun.’ ”
Noting that discussions are still underway with producers and directors on the project, Horowitz added, “The good news is if [‘Prisoners Of The Sun’] is not the second film it’ll be the third film so actually I could end up with two Tintins under my belt.” Certainly not a bad gig if you can get it.
Pleasing the mighty Spielberg and Jackson certainly can’t be an easy task, but it seems that Horowitz has impressed them enough with ‘Prisoners’ that they still want him to tackle the next effort. But there’s lots of time to get this together. Jackson will be busy with “The Hobbit” through the end of 2012, so there is plenty of room to keep tossing around ideas to get it right. But while the rest of the world soaks up “The Adventures Of Tintin,” we still have to wait. If you’re hitting the AFI Fest, ‘Tintin’ will be the closing the film, but for the rest, we’ll have to wait until December 21st.
