Hollywood eyes Tintin
2003-03-04 12:52
Michael Thurston
Brussels - Belgium commemorated the creator of cartoon boy-hero Tintin in low-key style on Monday - even as Hollywood may be about to turn the diminutive reporter into a global money-spinner.
The 20th anniversary of the death of Herge, author of the cartoon books featuring Tintin and his faithful dog Snowy, sparked as many questions as celebrations.
"Twenty years after the death of Herge, Tintin is looking for the way ahead," said the daily L'Echo, accusing the company which holds the cartoon character's rights of mismanaging Herge's heritage.
"The myth of Tintin is not dead. But is he immortal?" it said.
Tintin, whose author's real name was Georges Remi - Herge is a pseudonym derived from his initials in reverse - was first published in a weekly supplement of the Belgian newspaper Le Vingtieme Siecle in 1929.
Since then 23 Tintin adventures have been translated into more than 50 languages. Several animated films of the cowlick-sporting reporter have already been made.
Hopes that Tintin could soon become a worldwide big-screen blockbuster have been boosted by the recent announcement that none other than Steven Spielberg is mulling a live action film version.
"The project will definitely go ahead, we are just waiting for a deal on the rights to Tintin to be finalised," an industry source said last year.
The maker of E.T: The Extra Terrestrial, Jaws and Raiders of the Lost Ark will re-enact Tintin's adventures for Universal Pictures and his own production firm, DreamWorks Pictures.
Drunken Captain Haddock - who utters strings of exclamatory curses like "billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles" - Professor Cuthbert Calculus, the investigator twins Thomson and Thompson and, of course, his canine companion Snowy are all expected to feature in the film.
- AFP