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If they made a movie adaptation of Tintin in America in 2028 (it finished serialisation in 1932) it could only be shown in the US and other countries that have the same laws.

In some countries, the copyright term for works owned by a person is life + 50 years, and all of Hergé's works will become public domain on 1st January 2034. That is a slightly more realistic date for a Tintin movie based on the public domain to be released. In the US, they would have access to all of the stories up to The Black Island on that date too.

In Europe, the term is life + 70 years. All of Hergé's works will become public domain on 1st January 2054. In the US, any potential film makers would have access on that date to all of Hergé's works except for Tintin in Tibet, The Castafiore Emerald, Flight 714 to Sydney, Tintin and the Picaros and Tintin and Alph-art.
This is probably the earliest point that a public domain Tintin adaptation could be made and hope to be profitable.

Well here's the first test case for works entering the public domain - a new movie based on A.A. Milne's characters: Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey.

There's also an article in Variety with the film-makers, adressing the copyright issues they faced, and the steps they took to avoid conflict.

Moderator Note: Given that this is a thread about copyright, we've edited your post to identify, and add a link to, the source of the quote you had given, which didn't appear in the Wikipedia article you linked to - so rather than have it here, people can go to the Variety piece and read it there.
Also there are copyright versus public domain cases going back for years and years - this is just the most recent of many.
The Tidy Tintinologist Team

So there we have it - Mickey and Minnie start their slide into the public domain (in America at least, I haven't looked at how universal the change is in other jurisdictions, etc.) - no rear-guard action to change the law, or gain a further extension, as was being predicted by some earlier in the thread.
Already the horror-film/ slasher movie brigade are queueing up to release their takes on the mouse, as they did for Pooh Bear (who is joined this year by Tigger, now also just out of copyright).

So now we can look forward to a comic or film in which Tintin goes around Marlinspike killing everyone, and maybe even uses Calculus' ultra-sound machine in order to blow up Brussels?

I never understood why copyrights had to end. The examples above make a case for them to be everlasting.

JM Barrie gifted the rights of Peter Pan to Great Ormond Street Hospital which benefited from the innumerable productions. When it first expired in the UK at the end of 1987, an act of Parliament extended it.

I think that, even if the copyright expires, the holders should have some say in blocking exploitative depictions of popular characters in ways that go totally against what the original author described, and Herge certainly would not have the selfless crimefighter Tintin become a psychotic serial killer.

Well, yes - except that that will be quite a way in the future, if the US model is followed: Calculus, Marlinspike and the events depicted in The Calculus Affair won't enter the public domain for several years, a good while after Tintin himself does so.
However, you could get to work on your action flick, for release in America in 2026, in which an Arnold Schwarzenneger/ Bruce Willis-type Tintin and his attack dog Snowy take on the forces of revolutionary Soviet Russia, zombie infested haunted houses and rabid bears (before returning to a warm welcome by the children of Brussels)... :-)

As I said earlier in the thread, I have some sympathy with that position - I get that there is some merit in having works of cultural significance available to all (which appears to be the main argument for copyrights ending), but likewise, I also can't see why intangible property like literature and music don't get the same treatment as land and houses, which can be used to generate revenue in perpetuity (or indeed why land and property don't enter the public domain after a defined period, and get used for the greater good of all).

And so the press have started reporting on what I mentioned above - January 1st 2025 sees Tintin start to fall into the public domain (along with the works of George Gershwin, who I also name-checked above as having an estate who lobbied for copyright extension when the Sonny Bono act was in development, but who rarely got mentioned at that time by the press, a point which they seem to have noted as they are mentioning him now).
It's going to be a long time before many of the attributes which we identify with the character also become public domain - the Detectives, the Captain and Calculus, for example, as well as the signature blue jumper and reddish hair - but the clock will start ticking on New Year's day 2025!

Oh, and as a footnote, the Popeye character becomes public domain in the U.S. on the same day, some 16 years after he became public domain in the U.K., showing that copyright law is indeed confusing; Seegar, the cartoonist who created him dies very young, so the 70-years-from-author's-death period came up before his cover in the U.S. terminated. Hergé, having dies in the nineteen eighties, is covered in the U.K. and other places with the same terms, until the twenty-fifties.

I was reading just yesterday about how copyright on A.A. Milne's Winnie-The-Pooh character expired on 1 January 2022, since it had been 95 years since publication of the first story (under US copyright law). The character entered the public domain in the US in 2022, so Disney no longer holds exclusive rights there. In the UK, which is 70 (calendar) years after the author's death, they won't become public domain until 2027 (Milne died in 1956).

However, E.H. Shephard's drawings will remain in copyright until 2047, since he died in 1976. But in the US they must already be public domain.


That the text and illustrations can have two separate copyrights is already quite confusing. But, for instance, would it mean that the English names for characters, such as the Thompsons and Snowy, would remain in copyright but Tintin's name not, since the first English translations came much later?

I think the question will be, "Are you writing Tintin's name in French or English...?"

It will be interesting to see what difference this makes. I suspect not much. There is already a huge industry of Tintin pastiches and knockoffs in breach of copyright.

Harrock n roll
But, for instance, would it mean that the English names for characters, such as the Thompsons and Snowy, would remain in copyright but Tintin's name not, since the first English translations came much later?

I'll preface all of this with Jock123's refrain: I'm not a lawyer (or much involved in publishing rights). As I understand it, under UK law a translation remains in copyright for 70 years following the death of the translator, the translator being the author of the translation. We don't know the details of the arrangement with Methuen – whether the publisher owned the translations outright, as they were work done whilst Lonsdale-Cooper and Turner were employees, or whether they did them in a freelance capacity – but if we assume 70 years following the death of Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper as the last surviving named author, then the British translations would be protected in the UK until 2092. So not something many of us will still be around for!

If the character names themselves remain in copyright along with the translation (and I'm not clear if that is the case – somebody more learned may be able to advise) there isn't a huge amount that's actually available come January in the US. If an enterprising publisher wanted to put out a new edition of Soviets, then they would need to re-translate it (and potentially find a new name for Snowy), and sell enough copies to somehow make the whole project financially worthwhile. Considering Tintin has historically struggled to break into the US, even with all of the books to choose from, a TV series in the '90s and a Spielberg film more recently, then a new publisher starting from scratch – working one book at a time and beginning with the weakest material – has the odds stacked against them.