Peter Jackson confirms ‘Tintin’ sequel script is complete as he reveals his next film

‘Lord of the Rings’ director Peter Jackson has revealed that the script for the ‘Tintin’ sequel has been completed. It will mark his return to directing a film since 2014. Jackson revealed this at the Sitges Film Festival in Catalonia, where he was awarded the 2026 Honorary Grand Prize. In a chat with Screen Rant, Jackson said, “We’ve also already written the script for Tintin 2, the second Tintin film. That will be the next film I make.” He said this while talking about his plans for the Middle-earth franchise. Jackson mentioned that Andy Serkis’s ‘The Hunt for Gollum’ is about 2 weeks away from completion and ‘The Shadow of the Past’ is still in the scriptwriting phase.

It has been a long wait. ‘The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn’ (2011) was directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by Jackson and Kathleen Kennedy. Jackson’s Weta Digital provided the motion-capture (mocap) animation for the film. It was based on a young reporter, his dog Snowy, and Captain Haddock on a hunt for a secret of a model ship. It grossed $373 million worldwide, and $77 million in the US and Canada. The deal between the two directors stipulated that Jackson would direct the sequel, with Spielberg producing. And then came ‘The Hobbit’ trilogy (2012-14), and with it Jackson’s last scripted feature, ‘The Battle of the Five Armies’ (2014). Jackson has since made the documentaries ‘They Shall Not Grow Old’ (2018) and ‘Get Back’ (2021).

Jackson first hinted at the script last May at the Cannes Film Festival, where he was awarded an honorary Palme d’Or. To AFP, he said the deal was for Spielberg to direct one film and he himself to direct the other, and that “the sequel begins exactly where the last film ends.” The 64-year-old filmmaker would not say which Hergé albums the story was based on, but pointed to ‘Red Rackham’s Treasure,’ the book which follows on from ‘The Secret of the Unicorn.’ Jackson said he was writing the screenplay with Fran Walsh, his co-writer for the ‘Lord of the Rings’ movies.

The screenplay for the first film was written by Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish and won the 2012 Golden Globe for best animated feature. Both directors have Academy Award wins, with Jackson earning three for ‘The Return of the King’ in 2004. The original comics, by the Belgian artist Hergé, were first published in 1929, with ‘Red Rackham’s Treasure’ a newspaper serial from 1943. Spielberg will now take the producer’s chair on the sequel, with no announcement of when it will begin production or hit theaters.