What do you get when two of the best paid directors jointly create a movie? ‘Tintin 3′ apparently, because Steven Spielberg said it’s likely he’ll direct the third ‘Tintin’ movie together with Peter Jackson. “We are going to make three Tintin movies back-to-back. I’ll direct the first one, Peter will direct the second one. We’ll probably co-direct the third one,” Spielberg said at Cannes.

A promising statement to say the least. It sounds like this is going to be one of the major franchises the coming years. Andy Serkis has already signed for the movies, which will start shooting in September.

No, stars aren’t wearing headsets on the red carpet (yet), but Skype (http://www.skype.com) is making an interesting move in this direction. The company is using its video conferencing program to connect the Cannes Film Festival to the stars who sadly couldn’t be there. American Pavilion will be using Skype in their ‘In Conversation’ and ‘Industry In Focus’ series, in which filmmakers have daily discussions about different aspects of the film industry. They can practically give an interview from the set they’re currently filming on.

Director James Cameron will be one of the people using Skype for the interviews at Cannes. I reckon he’s busy enough with post-production on ‘Avatar’ as it is, so I assume this is why he opted for a little video call. Or he’s just lazy, but I wouldn’t dare to call a man with the highest grossing movie of all time (’Titanic’) lazy. By using Skype, he will be able to talk to the audience on a big screen at Cannes, which I imagine would be just as impressive as the real thing.

It’s good to see the film industry embracing the internet. Not only are they creating ways to get legal content out there, but they’re also connecting to their audience in a new way. Like Guillermo del Toro’s internet chat session about ‘The Hobbit’ next weekend. Or all the movie production blogs in recent years. It seems like moderated video chats with the big stars are just around the corner. Instead of traveling all over the world to promote their movie, they could just take a couple of video calls. Where do I sign up?

Interested in a ‘School of Rock’ sequel? In a few weeks we should know if it’s officially coming, since Jack Black is already working on it. “I’d really like to do it, the last one was great,” Jack Black said at Cannes. “We are seriously thinking about it, there’s already a script. In a few weeks we have to decide if we go through with the project or not.“

No word on the involvement of Richard Linklater, but if he has the time I would count him in. He has referenced the idea in several interviews in the years after the first movie. ‘School of Rock 2′ has been a long time coming. The $35 million ‘School of Rock’ was a mild success in 2003, doing over $130 million worldwide. Black didn’t give any details about the scriptwriter or its content.

Source: ANP