Steven Spielberg Talks LINCOLN, the TINTIN Sequels, and ROBOPOCALYPSE; Says He Isn’t Directing JURASSIC PARK 4

“You want me to speak French to you? That wouldn’t be a good career choice for me. I got a lot of fans here. I don’t want to lose them with one bad accent!” Steven Spielberg joked when the French media asked him to say a few words in their language at a press conference in Paris this week, where he was promoting War Horse.  All kidding aside however, the legendary director does not like to talk about uncompleted projects.  Yet he did offer some insight into four of his upcoming movies.

While he spent much of the 45 minutes answering questions about his new film, he also discussed Lincoln, Robopocalypse, the Adventures of Tintin sequels and Jurassic Park 4.  Hit the jump for more.

After the success of The Adventures of Tintin in French theaters last fall, the sequel, to be helmed by Peter Jackson, is generating much curiosity. Given Tintin’s cultural importance in France, everyone wants to know which books part deux will be based on.

“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.”

His next movie, Lincoln, is scheduled to hit US theaters next December, but as long as it’s still in the editing room, the legendary director refuses to go into specifics. Suffice it to say that he’s a busy man with many projects, including the dark sci-fi Robopocalypse, a popcorn flick that should begin filming this fall.

“I just finished shooting a movie about Abraham Lincoln staring Daniel Day-Lewis which I am so deeply proud of. But because I am right in the middle of the editing of Lincoln, I’m not really going to speak and talk very much about that until the time is right to talk about it. And I’m making a science fiction movie probably in September called Robopocalypse based on Daniel Wilson’s book. It’s a cautionary tale about war between human beings and robots. It’s a big crowd pleaser, I think, a big action popcorn movie with a message. The message is actually in the popcorn! You have to get the popcorn, dig down deep in the bottom and they’ll be a message about what Robopocalypse is really about! And I have a couple of other plans which I don’t want to go into because they’re too far out of the horizon. But there’s a lot of work ahead, a lot of television my company is producing for some of the networks and some of the cable outlets. So I’m busy!”

Since no questions about Jurassic Park 4 came up, I caught up with Spielberg after the conference, in case he had finally decided to reveal something.

“I don’t want to talk about Jurassic Park 4 yet – it’s too early – but I can tell you that I’m not directing it. I’m producing it though.”

One more attempt to coax more out of the director: Will Jurassic Park 4 be a reboot or a sequel and will it be released to mark the 20^th anniversary of Jurassic Park?

“I can’t say. I will when the time is right, but for now I can’t talk about it.”

Producer Kathleen Kennedy hinted to Steve last month that the long-awaited fourth installment may be in 3D. But when I asked Spielberg, he refused to confirm. But come on, dinosaurs in 3D? It was so meant to be.