The first images from the highly anticipated CG heavy collaboration The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn between Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson have been released via Empire Magazine. The film is based on the Tintin series of graphic novels written and drawn by renowned Belgian cartoonist Georges Prosper Remi better know as Hergé. The stills reveal an amazing authenticity to the original design of the characters while blurring the line between special effects and human performance.
“With live action you’re going to have actors pretending to be Captain Haddock and Tintin,” says Peter Jackson. “You’d be casting people to look like them. It’s not really going to feel like the Tintin Hergé drew. It’s going to be somewhat different. With CG I we can bring Hergé’s world to life, keep the stylised caricatured faces, keep everything looking like Hergé’s artwork, but make it photo-real.”
The images reveal a close-up of Captain Haddock played by CG expert Andy Serkis and two silhouettes of Tintin played by Jaime Bell. Also joining the cast are the comedic duo Simon Pegg and Nick Frost who will be playing the two bumbling detectives Thompson and Thompson. With Speilberg using the full resources of special effects powerhouse WETA and drawing from a rich tome of entertaining stories, I’m looking forward to what Speilberg can do with the Tintin franchise. As a Belgian, he better not disgrace it.
The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn hits US theaters on December 28th, 2011 and in the UK October 26th, 2011.
What do you think of the first shots from The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn?