After more than a decade away from feature film-making, Peter Jackson sounds ready to get back into action.
Speaking via Zoom with longtime collaborator Richard Taylor for a retrospective story commemorating the 30th anniversary of his first Hollywood film, The Frighteners, Jackson indicated that his next project as director will be the long-awaited follow-up to Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin.
“Fran and I have been writing a script for the next Tintin film because 15 years ago, Steven Spielberg directed a Tintin film and I produced it,” Jackson exclusively tells Gold Derby. “The idea was that then I was supposed to go straight onto a second one, and we’d swap the roles, so I’d direct the second one and he’d produce it. It’s just taken 15 years to get there, unfortunately, a bit late. But it’s a timeless story. So we just wrapped up. So probably the next film that I’d actually direct is a Tintin movie.”
The last feature film Jackson helmed was the 2014 sequel The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. He’s remained busy since then, producing Mortal Engines in 2018 and The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim in 2024, while directing two documentary features (They Shall Not Grow Old and The Beatles: Get Back — The Rooftop Concert) and a documentary series (The Beatles: Get Back).
In January, he briefly addressed his absence from feature filmmaking in a video recorded for a rerelease of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, explaining that the death of his longtime cinematographer Andrew Lesnie made Jackson gun-shy about getting back into the director’s chair.
“I think his death changed my creative path,” Jackson said in the clip. “The result is for 11 or 12 years, I haven’t made a drama film because that would require me to build a relationship with another DP.”
Ahead of Tintin 2, however, Jackson is dipping his toe back in the waters of big-screen moviemaking with a return to the cinematic world of Middle-earth. When he spoke with Gold Derby about The Frighteners, he revealed that production just got underway for director Andy Serkis’ The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum. “We’re about four days into shooting,” Jackson said. “I’m a producer on it, but Andy’s directing and we started shooting that on [June 29].”
Taylor, who was also on the call, explained that The Hunt for Gollum was the reason he’d had to briefly sign out of the conversation about The Frighteners. “The machine never stops,” he said apologetically. “I had to approve something that needs to get built instantly. So we’re as deep into it as you could possibly be. It’s obviously extraordinarily joyful — we’re loving being back in Middle-earth.” Taylor said that the production is humming along thus far under Serkis’ leadership.
“We’re loving working with Andy, though we obviously miss Pete being at the helm as always,” he said. “But it’s joyful. I was on set on Monday and just seeing Andy fitting into it so well and the crew were just there in support of him so fully because he’s an old friend now, so it was lovely, really lovely.”
As if to prove his claim, Taylor presented a model of Bag End, that not only rendered the Hobbit domicile in great detail, but featured a glass lens to allow the user to explore the space and look at the human and Hobbit characters in accurate scale. “And you can take [the lens] off and mount your cell phone on it so you can film it,” Taylor added.
Neither Jackson nor Taylor indicated when the script for Tintin 2 might be ready for filming, but The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum is currently scheduled for release in December 2027.
