Dambusters filming set for next year

GRANT MAIDEN

ON COURSE: The Dambusters director Christian Rivers, with producer Peter Jackson in the replica of a Lancaster bomber used in the top secret World War II dam busting attack. With shooting on The Lovely Bones now complete, Jackson's focus is moving on to his next projects, The Dambusters and Tintin.

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Tintin and Dambusters are in Peter Jackson's sights - now that he has finished shooting The Lovely Bones.

The first of the three Tintin movies Jackson will make with Steven Spielberg will begin shooting in September, and filming is likely to begin on Dambusters early next year.

Actor Andy Serkis, who will play Captain Haddock in the Tintin films, told BBC radio that filming will begin in September in Los Angeles, with Spielberg as director and Jackson as producer.

Serkis, best known for Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, said Jackson will direct the second Tintin adventure, and Jackson and Spielberg may jointly direct the third.

A spokesman for Jackson told The Dominion Post shooting Dambusters was "likely to commence early next year".

Jackson's The Lovely Bones was in post production and would be released some time between September and November next year, he said.

Plans for Jackson's $US40 million movie about the the famous assault were announced in September 2006. Jackson, who is producing the Christian Rivers-directed film, has said shooting was possible this year.

British actor and writer Stephen Fry had written the script, a remake of the 1955 film The Dam Busters, but the cast still had to be announced.

At least a half-dozen other films made or partly made in New Zealand are due to be released later this year.

Vincent Ward's Rain of the Children, Simu Urale's Apron Strings and Gregory King's A Song of Good premiere in the Wellington and Auckland film festivals.

At least another six, including Titanic director James Cameron's Avatar, are due to be released next year.

Other films likely to be shot later this year included one on champion weightlifter Precious McKenzie and Wellington film-maker Taika Waititi's second feature The Volcano.

However, plans to start shooting Under the Mountain have been delayed after British company Capitol Films withdrew substantial funding for the project at the last minute.

The film version of Maurice Gee's novel, tipped to star Sam Neill and directed by Black Sheep's Jonathan King, was to have started shooting in Auckland last month and was then delayed till August.

But plans were now on hold while the writers and producers approach the Screen Production Investment Fund for more money.

King said they were waiting on a "key funding decision".

Films in various stages of development included Land of the Lost, Radio Pirates, Dominion Post cartoonist Tom Scott's Separation City and a film on race car champion Bruce McLaren.

Producer Tim Sanders (Whale Rider and Perfect Creature) earlier this year said he was working on six potential projects, including a $US100 million sci-fi film and a $20 million feature on the life of Jean Baptiste Pompallier, the first Roman Catholic Bishop of Auckland.

- © Fairfax NZ News