Tintin Forums

According to the Wikipedia article on the abandoned project Le ThermoZéro:

Unwilling to abandon a good idea, Hergé planned to make Le ThermoZéro the plot of the third filmed adventure of Tintin, but once again, this did not take place.

Moderator Note: While it's okay to quote a line or two from another source, just copying and pasting paragraphs from another site isn't a good thing to do - especially when what you post is almost the entire content of the other site's page. You just have to post a link to the place you are quoting, and explain to your fellow members what relevance there is to the topic being discussed.
It also has to be said that the claim is completely without reference as to source, so it should be taken with a large grain of salt.

Your post has been edited accordingly.

The Tintinologist Team

Wikipedia also claims that Le ThermoZéro was to be the basis of another Jo, Zette & Jocko adventure, but again never got made.

I've often wondered if anyone else thought of using it as a plot. Greg was a very prolific writer and I wouldn't be surprised if he used it as a basis for an adventure with other characters.

Be interesting to know.

Not just Wikipedia - we've touched on Le ThermoZéro as a JZ&J book here at Tintinologist too!


I don't believe he did - I imagine that once Studios Hergé took it on, he probably got paid for it, and the rights to the scenario passed to Hergé. As the thread I link to shows, the JZ&J version was more or less finished, with all the pages in place (although the exact state of the artwork - whether pencils or inks or whatever is not certain), so Greg probably saw it as a done deal.

As you say, he was quite prolific, so it wasn't as if Greg was short of ideas, and he probably just came up with some fresh ones.

Just came across this while doing a little site "house-cleaning", so thought I'd take a look at what M. Talbot did inded say about it in his autobiography...

...and the answer is: not much!

Not through reticence, he simply doesn't seem to have much information. He tells us that the possibilty of a third film was talked about for a long time, and that it was goint to "perhaps" be in India. He was given riding lessons while the talks went on, "just in case..."
However, as time passed, and he heard nothing, he wondered if another film was thought too expensive, or if the company simply wanted to replace him.
At the same time, his own life was moving on - he met his wife, and married her in 1964, and then in 1965 he went into the army (having already completed his National Service). So by 1967 he wouldn't really have been free for a film, even if he'd wanted to pursue an acting career, which he realized he didn't, and moved into teaching for the quality of life it gave him.
So, had the third film happened, whatever the plot, it is quite possible we'd have had a new live-action leading man - or, perhaps, we didn't get a third film because the company lost their leading man...?