Peter Jackson talked to the UK press for the London Royal gala premiere of his new film, The Lovely Bones, about both writing the screenplays for The Hobbit films and bringing The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn to the big screen.
He told the press that the script from the first “Hobbit” film, to be directed by Guillermo del Toro, has been completed.
“‘The Hobbit’ will be two movies and we’ve written the first script and delivered it to the studio who seem to be happy with it,” Jackson said. “We’re now halfway through the second script and Philippa, Fran, Guillermo and myself are doing the scripts and having great fun.”
He added: “It was an interesting experience because eight or nine years have passed since we wrote the ‘Lord of the Rings’ screenplays and I was worried it’d be weird or hard or uncomfortable to go back there, but as soon as we started writing the scripts it was fun, actually, and easy.”
Jackson had been scouting for locations in New Zealand right before traveling to London. He stressed that there would be continuity between his films and Del Toro’s.
“We’re writing the screenplays with him, so in terms of the script, there is continuity,” he said. “We’re writing Ian McKellen’s dialogue just the same as we did in ‘Lord of the Rings.’ But Guillermo, being the director, will obviously take the script and interpret that and shoot his film. So that’ll be interesting to see.
“That’s actually the reason I wanted him to do it. I felt like I’d be trying to compete with myself and deliberately do things differently, which is not the way I want to work. I want it to be natural.”
Jackson mentioned that the “Hobbit” films will not be released in 3D. “Guillermo wants to shoot in 35mm, old-fashioned film, which suits me, because he wants to keep it in the same space as the original trilogy.”
Jackson said that filming for the Steven Spielberg-directed “Tintin” movie, which Jackson is producing, is in the can, but it will take two years for the computer animation to be completed. “‘Tintin’ is great. It’s made. The movie is cut together and now [we] are turning it into a fully-rendered film. So the movie, to some degree, exists in a very rough state.”
