According to Box Office Mojo the official release date for Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn in North America is December 23rd 2011, which also happens to be my birthday. Tintin will be released in countries such as Sweden, Netherlands and Germany in October 2011 as Tintin is rather popular in that part of the world. To date the graphic novel series has sold over 200 million copies worldwide and most of those sales were in Europe, so the studios (Sony/Paramount) have the right strategy even if the US has to wait an extra 2 months for it.

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn stars Daniel Craig, Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and will be using the same performance-capture technology James Cameron used for Avatar, so expect a visual treat.

ComingSoon.net recently caught up with Nick Frost and he spoke about two films I can’t wait to see. Paul is his third outing with Simon Pegg after Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, and will follow the duo travelling across the U.S. after Comic Con. During their adventure they encounter an alien called Paul outside Area 51, who will sound a lot like Seth Rogen.

During the interview, Frost discussed how difficult the movie’s filming had been. “Any shot that Paul was in, we had to do him with no-one there, then with a little fella wearing a green suit, then a kid with a mask on, then a man holding a grey ball, then a lighting puppet, then ‘Mr. Eyes,’ which is a stick with eyes on it. Then nothing. Then red lights, which was our eye-line.”

Frost also commented on The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn which will see him team up with Simon Pegg once again, however this time they will be fully CG in the form of twins Thompson and Thompson.

Asked how that compared to the entirely CG animated The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, the first of two “Tintin” movies directed by Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson, respectively, Frost told us, “‘Tintin’ was weird enough. At least with ‘Tintin’ everyone’s there. Everyone’s on the set and you’re acting with real people”.

This led to an anecdote about how Spielberg came to be involved with the “Tintin” franchise. According to Frost, Spielberg had originally been made aware of “Tintin” during the publicity tour for the original “Indiana Jones” film. Various members of the press had compared Jones to Tintin, which inspired Spielberg to research the character, and eventually purchase the rights.

Paul hasn’t received an official release date yet, however it will be out sometime in 2010. Tintin on the other hand has a release date of December 2011, which is long time for us to wait!

WhatisPaul.com, the official production blog for Paul, has been updated with a video featuring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost who give us a rundown on the story, cast and crew of Paul. The video also makes me want to be on set with them, as it looks like a barrel of laughs.

It looks like director Greg Mattola (Adventureland, Superbad) is already having a blast on the set of Paul, his sci-fi/road-trip buddy comedy written by and starring British super-comedy duo Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz). The film’s titular alien character will be voiced by Seth Rogan, and recent news of Sigourney Weaver joining the cast makes for a motley crew of comedians.

Actually, Mottola is pretty busy. Paul has started principal photography in New Mexico (thanks to great tax breaks for filmmakers and, of course, the pic being about an alien from Area 51) and has just entered a stretch of night shoots according to the director’s Twitter.

Pegg seems to be having most of the fun on set, updating his website Peggster.net with set photos from New Mexico. Featured above, from left to right are Frost, Bill Hader and Joe Lo Truglio, who I last saw as Donnie in Starz’s excellent original series Party Down.

CLICK HERE to be taken to Peggster.net’s collection of Paul set photos, including Greg Mattola: The Dog.

Last week we heard that Seth Rogen and Jason Batemen would be joining Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in Greg Mottola’s Paul. At that point I didn’t think the cast could get any better, however today is actually might. According to The Playlist Sigourney Weaver (who will next be seen in Avatar) has joined the cast. Ripley will be once again be meeting an alien! The Playlist also have an official synopsis of the film, which will begin filming this summer.

PAUL is the story of Graham Willy (Simon Pegg) and Clive Gollings (Nick Frost), two sci-fi enthusiasts from the UK. The film follows them on a once in a lifetime trip to America, starting with a visit to San Diego Comic Con. Having enjoyed the delights of the convention, the boys set off on a trip to Area 51 for a spot of light UFO tourism. However, their trip takes a sudden and dramatic turn when the boys happen upon a crashed government vehicle containing an Alien called Paul (to be voiced by Seth Rogen). They embark upon an adventure, which sees them accidentally kidnapping a young Christian girl (Kristen Wiig) and paying a surprise visit to an old woman called Tara, who 60 years before pulled a stricken Paul from his crashed ship. Together, this mismatched band struggle to help Paul get home, all the while trying desperately to stay ahead of the tenacious government operative, Agent Lorenzo Zoil (Jason Bateman) and Ruth’s zealous, shot- gun toting, bible bashing father, Moses Behe. This is a comedy about being an alien in America, even if you’re not from outer space.

According to Variety Seth Rogen, Jason Bateman, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader and Jane Lynch have joined the cast of Paul.

The road trip laffer stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost and will be directed by Greg Mottola.

Pegg and Frost, who wrote the script, will play two science-fiction fanatics on a road trip whose conspiracy dreams come true when they trek to Area 51 and encounter the title character, an escaped alien.

Rogen will provide the voice of the alien.

This is Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s next joint outing after Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz so I have high expectations. Adding Rogen and Bateman to the mix will just add to the greatness.

Paul will be released sometime next year.

In an interview with The Guardian Nick Frost (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead) spoke a little about working on The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn with Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson.

Nick finds acting difficult because he doesn’t have the back-up of training. On the Tintin film, the script kept changing, to such an extent that he and Simon were sometimes handed their words just minutes before they went on. “I need a week to really get a scene into my head. And you’ve got Steven Spielberg and Kathy Kennedy, who’s the most powerful woman in Hollywood, and Peter Jackson, who’s co-directing from New Zealand using iChat! It was the most stressful thing I’ve ever done. Having said that, Spielberg was amazing. Sometimes he’d run on at the end of a scene and do a little dance and punch the air.”

Spielberg recently finished the performance-capture stuff and Peter Jackson is now working on the special effects for 18 months with WETA in New Zealand.

Simon Pegg revealed to the The Sunday Times back in September that Steven Spielberg had asked that he and Nick Frost play the Thompson Twins in Tintin. At the time it sounded like a casual suggestion, however according to a tipster at AICN it was more than that.

According to a reliable source not at all involved in the production, those rumblings we heard last fall about Simon Pegg and Nick Frost being cast as the Thomson and Thompson were right on the money. They’re in.

If you look at the image above you will notice that they do not look like twins. However, Spielberg will be using motion capture technology (Gollum, Davy Jones) so we may not be actually seeing them on screen, but we will be hearing their voices and seeing their performance.

Filming will begin shortly so we will probably get more casting news over the next few weeks. Andy Serkis is already confirmed for Captain Haddock, we just need Tintin, his dog and the rest of the characters!

Simon Pegg revealed to the The Sunday Times that Steven Spielberg asked that he and Nick Frost play the Thompson Twins in Tintin.

“Steven’s smoking a stogy, cap on head, like he’s always been since I was a baby,” Pegg says, shaking his head in wonder. “I shook his hand and chatted about films. He gave me the mo-cap [motion-capture] camera, and I had a play around with it. Then he said, ‘Hey, maybe you and Nick Frost could play the Thompson Twins.’ In Tintin. A Spielberg movie. To work with him is beyond…” He trails off, lost for words.

I’m not sure how convincing they would be as twins, seeing as though they look and sound different. However, as the film will be in motion capture they could capture the essence of Frost and Pegg and turn them into twins for the big screen. It could work.

Simon Pegg today revealed that he will no longer be appearing in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Bastards.

“I won’t be appearing in QT’s forthcoming Inglorious Bastards due to insurmountable scheduling difficulties. We really tried to make it work but in the end, it just was not possible without severe ramifications elsewhere.”

However, there is some good news in the Pegg department. His next film with onscreen partner Nick Frost, entitled Paul, will be directed by Superbad director Greg Mottola.

From Empire:

Details on the script are minimal at the moment, but it is known that the story concerns the pair taking a road trip across America and, as Jessica Hynes let slip in our Comic-Con video diaries, the story will start at San Diego Comic-Con.