Jackson talks Tintin and The Hobbit

Peter Jackson was in London last night for the premiere of The Lovely Bones , his much vaunted adaptation of Alice Sebold's 2002 best-seller - click here to read our review - but he was also in a chatty mood about his upcoming projects, namely Tintin and The Hobbit.

Starting with Tintin, Jackson says that Spielberg has finished filming and has 'cut the film together using the motion captured footage, so it exists in a very rough state.'

The bad news is that it is going to take two years to complete the computer animation, with the film given a release date of December 23, 2011.

Article continues below

As for The Hobbit, Jackson confirms that he is working on the script with Del Toro , and that prior to his London visit, he had been scouting locations around New Zealand.

"We’re writing the screenplays with him, so in terms of the script, there is continuity.

"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."