Can Tintin save motion-capture animation
“Tintin,” however, is disproving that theory.
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) Seven months after “Mars Needs Moms” led to questions about the future of motion-capture animation, Steven Spielberg is showing that audiences might not have totally rejected the technique after all.
“I think Herge would be smiling with the work they accomplished with the character in the film,” Bruer said.
In Spain, it grossed $6.7 million on 798 screens — 50 percent of the country’s entire market and nearly 10 times as much as what that nation’s No. 2 film grossed. In Germany, “Tintin” took $4.6 million on 847 screens.
In “Tintin,” which Spielberg directed and Peter Jackson produced, young adventurer Tintin and his friend Capt. Haddock search for a sunken treasure ship that was commanded by one of Haddock’s ancestors.
This weekend alone, the movie grossed $2.1 million from 169 screens in Herge’s home nation, $1.9 million from 297 screens in Sweden, $1.8 million from 174 screens in Switzerland, $1.6 million on 221 screens in Denmark and $1.3 million on 250 screens in Holland and $1.3 million in Italy.
Bruer said he expects the strong international reaction will translate to big audiences when it opens in the United States on December 21. Paramount is handling the film’s domestic release.
Spielberg’s “The Adventures of Tintin” is off to a promising start at the interational box office, opening to $55.8 million abroad this weekend. It was No. 1 in 17 out of the 19 territories it debuted in.
He noted that the character of Tintin, based on a comic book by Belgian artist Georges Remi (who used the pen name Herge), is better known in Western Europe than in the United States.
In France, where “Tintin” enjoyed the biggest opening ever for an original, non-sequel Hollywood film, the movie took in $21.5 million on 935 screens.
“You couldn’t ask for a film that’s more immersive and incredible to look at than ‘Tintin,’” said Rory Bruer, president of worldwide distribution at Sony, which shares international distribution rights with Paramount Pictures International. “There’s no doubt about it. It just draws you into it, and it just is quite an amazing feat visually. Spectacular, actually.”
By contrast, “Mars Needs Moms” was such a flop that Disney shut down its motion-capture animation division, which was run by the movie’s producer, Robert Zemeckis. And it canceled Zemeckis’ plan to make a motion-capture version of The Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine.”
The movie enjoyed strong numbers across Europe: It was No. 1 in the U.K., where it grossed $10.7 million.
Reaction was so negative, in fact, that the New York Times said the film “may lead to the end for the Zemeckis style of motion-capture filmmaking, which has proven increasingly unpopular with audiences.”
“The press has been very good, of course, and it’s going to make it resonate in the U.S. even that much more,” Bruer said.
