Steven Spielberg has been doing the press rounds to promote The Adventures of Tintin and War Horse and the ever-busy filmmaker has taken the opportunity to update the status of some of his upcoming projects, including the highly-anticipated fourth installment in the Jurassic Park franchise, the not-so-highly-anticipated-judging-by-its-box-office sequel to The Secret of the Unicorn, and his adaptation of Daniel H. Wilson’s bestselling sci-fi novel, Robopocalypse.
Speaking to Collider, Spielberg confirmed that he’ll be restricting himself to producing duties on Jurassic Park IV, which presumably leaves the door open for Captain America: The First Avenger helmer Joe Johnston to continue in the director’s chair. However, while he remained coy about revealing any further dinosaur details, Spielberg was happy to share some details about the Tintin sequel: “I’m not going to say which stories have been chosen for Peter Jackson’s sequel because Peter and I agreed that we weren’t going to let that information out yet. The script is now being written. It’s more than one book, but it’s not three books, so that means it’s two books. It’s two and a half books that we’re combining with The Secret of the Unicorn. And Peter will start working on the film this year. When he’s done shooting The Hobbit, he’ll begin his performance capture work with the actors later in 2012, which I’m very excited about. And of course, I’m hoping I’ll be able to direct the third one. I’d love to do the third one because I had so much fun on the first one.”
Meanwhile Spielberg also opened up about his return to the science fiction genre with Robopocalypse, telling TimeOut London: “I had a great time creating the future on Minority Report, and it’s a future that is coming true faster than any of us thought it would. Robopocalypse takes place in 15 or 20 years, so it’ll be another future we can relate to. It’s about the consequences of creating technologies which make our lives easier, and what happens when that technology becomes smarter than we are. It’s not the newest theme, it’s been done throughout science fiction, but it’s a theme that becomes more relevant every year.”
Along with Jurassic Park IV, the Tintin sequel and Robopocalypse, Spielberg has a number of other projects on the horizon; he is currently directing the long-gestating biopic Lincoln with Daniel Day-Lewis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jared Harris, Tommy Lee Jones, Jackie Earle Haley and Sally Field, while his upcoming producing credits include the feature films Men in Black III, When Worlds Collide, Transformers 4 and the ‘Untitled Diablo Cody Project’, along with the small screen offerings The River, Smash and The Talisman. Oh, and he’s also meant to be reteaming with Harrison Ford and his buddy George Lucas for a fifth Indiana Jones movie, although God only knows where he’ll be able to fit it into his schedule.
For more on Robopocalypse, check out our interview with Daniel H. Wilson.
Originally published January 13, 2012. Updated November 29, 2022.
