15 years later, Peter Jackson finally commits to directing Tintin 2

If you ever dive into The Adventures of Tintin corner of Steven Spielberg's CV, you'll find a film that sticks out like a sore thumb—or, if you're a fan, an unmined goldmine. It was Spielberg's only go at animated filmmaking, using that then-futuristic motion capture tech everyone was obsessed with around 2011. Critics practically tripped over themselves to compare it to Raiders of the Lost Ark (not unwarranted, honestly), and it nabbed the Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature—the first mo-cap film to do so. With a global haul of $374 million off a $135 million budget, plus about 24 volumes of Hergé's comics up for grabs, you’d think we’d have a six-film franchise by now. Instead, what we got was…almost nothing.

The Adventures of Tintin hit cinemas in 2011, topped $370 million, and yet the sequel spent the next decade utterly comatose.

The Sequel’s Wild Goose Chase

The plan was allegedly simple: Spielberg would launch the series, and Peter Jackson would step up to direct the sequel, a partnership confirmed in one of the most famous handshakes in modern film development. In reality? The wheels fell off immediately. Jackson got swallowed up by The Hobbit trilogy, then wandered off into documentaries, while the promised Tintin follow-up spent years existing in that studio netherworld of wishful mentions and vague promises. Time ticked by with nothing remotely concrete, apart from the occasional star or producer insisting it was "still happening." For over a decade that looked increasingly suspect.

Finally, A Real Update

Spring 2026 delivered an unexpected jolt. At the Sitges Film Festival (which gave him its Honorary Grand Prize this year), Jackson rattled off his project slate. Yes, everyone's hungry for Hobbit-adjacent headlines—The Hunt for Gollum nearly wrapped, The Shadow of the Past in script stage—but Jackson confirmed something big for the Tintin die-hards, slotting the sequel directly into his calendar for the first time ever. The script, according to Jackson, is ready and waiting, and Tintin 2 is officially 'the next film I make'—his own words at Sitges.

Speaking to his long-time pact with Spielberg during his Cannes acceptance speech: "The deal was that Steven directs one and I direct another. Steven did his film, then for 15 years I haven't made mine. I feel very awkward about that."

It’s not just empty talk this time. Back in May, while collecting an honorary Palme d'Or at Cannes, he confessed he’d been co-writing the script directly with Fran Walsh (his partner and frequent writing collaborator). He was even drafting pages in a hotel down the road and shooting them off to New Zealand in the middle of the festival. By summer, the finished script was reportedly on his desk, and come Sitges, he made it clear that Tintin 2 really is his next directorial gig.

Inside the Next Adventure

This script marks a rare twist: the original Tintin's screenplay came from the sort of creative line-up you’d usually stick on a poster—Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish. The sequel, penned by Jackson and Walsh themselves, will allegedly start exactly where the first film left off. Jackson hasn’t clarified which Hergé albums he’s adapting, but the smart money is (and always has been) on the Peruvian two-parter: The Seven Crystal Balls and Prisoners of the Sun. That pair has trailed the project since at least 2012.

• Original cast return is unconfirmed: Jamie Bell (Tintin) and Andy Serkis (Captain Haddock) have not yet been announced, though motion capture spares them the hassle of aging out—as long as they’re game, they’re in.
• The original delay came down mostly to Jackson’s Hobbit commitment and his subsequent move away from narrative features; his last scripted film came out in 2014.
• If all goes as Jackson says, Tintin 2 will follow Gollum onto his workbench, with a script already locked

And that’s where things stand for Tintin’s big-screen return—a film with enough false starts to have its own Wikipedia footnote, but now, at last, with Peter Jackson saying the next move is finally his. If only it hadn’t taken 15 years of polite awkwardness to get there.