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.

While James Cameron was busy filming Avatar in New Zealand he invited a number of filmmakers to take a look at his new performance-capture technology, two of which were directors Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg who, after playing around with the cameras on the Avatar set, decided to make Tintin.

Spielberg completed filming on Tintin a year ago after a mere 32 days of shooting and Peter Jackson has since been working with WETA on the special effects. They won’t be creating 10 foot tall Na’vi, but they will be creating something equally amazing.

Spielberg recently spoke to the Los Angeles Times about making Tintin, which he says he “just adored”.

“I just adored it,“ he says. “It made me more like a painter than ever before. I got a chance to do so many jobs that I don’t often do as a director. You get to paint with this device that puts you into a virtual world, and allows you to make your shots and block all the actors with a small hand-held device only three times as large as an Xbox game controller.”

With that small monitor, Spielberg could look down and watch what the actors were doing — in real time — on a screen that showed them in the film universe. Working on the motion-capture stage — which is called the volume — Spielberg was routinely dazzled by the liberating artistic value of the new science.

“When Captain Haddock runs across the volume, the cameras capture all the information of his physical and emotional moves,” the director said. “So as Andy Serkis runs across the stage, there’s Captain Haddock on the monitor, in full anime, running along the streets of Belgium. Not only are the actors represented in real time, they enter into a three-dimensional world.”

So though Jamie Bell will be digitally made to look exactly like Hergé’s classic renderings of Tintin, “it will be Jamie Bell’s complete physical and emotional performance,” Spielberg said. He added: “If Tintin makes you feel something, it’s Jamie Bell’s soul you’re sensing.”

Tintin isn’t that well known in the United States, however the graphic novel series has sold over 200 million copies worldwide so I’m sure there will be a few people looking forward to this as much as I am.

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn will be released on December 23rd 2011 in the US, and October/November in Europe (where it’s key audience will be). Peter Jackson is expected to begin work on the sequel sometimes over the next year or so, with the script and animatics already complete.

Steven Spielberg had been planning his next directing gig, Harvey, since August. However according to Variety he has now withdrawn from directing due creative disputes with Robert Downey Jr., his potential lead.

Spielberg delivered the news this week to 20th Century Fox, which had earmarked soundstages on the Fox lot in anticipation of an early 2010 production start. Fox had agreed to have DreamWorks finance 50% of production through its new funding relationship with Reliance, and either distribute domestically or internationally through its arrangement with Disney.

Pic—an adaptation of Mary Chase’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play about a man who befriends a six and one-half foot tall invisible rabbit—has been a challenge to pull together since Spielberg committed last August. One of the biggest challenges has been setting a star for Elwood P. Dowd, a role played in the 1950 film by James Stewart.

Spielberg’s first choice was Tom Hanks, but the actor who is often regarded as a modern day Stewart wanted no part of taking over a role played by the iconic star. Spielberg and Fox spent several months courting Robert Downey Jr. While the “Sherlock Holmes” star never committed, he did make suggestions on rewrites of the Jonathan Tropper script. He and Spielberg never found themselves in creative synch on the script, and the director finally called the whole thing off.

This means that Spielberg has no current project lined up to direct. Tintin finished filming in March and will now spend the next two years getting rendered at WETA under Peter Jackson’s supervision. There is a possibility Spielberg could now focus his attention on the Abraham Lincoln biopic with Liam Neeson, which I was actually looking forward to more than Harvey.

Peter Jackson has been completing lots of things lately. Last week we heard the script for the first Hobbit film was finished, and now Jackson has told the BBC that The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn is finished. In it’s raw form anyway.

Steven Spielberg’s Tintin film is in the can, but it will take two years for the computer animation to be completed, producer Peter Jackson has said.

The Lord Of The Rings director told the BBC: “Tintin is great. It’s made. The movie is cut together and now [we] are turning it into a fully-rendered film”.

“So the movie, to some degree, exists in a very rough state.”

Two years is a heck of a long time. But then again they are using the same technology that James Cameron used for Avatar, so it was expected.

Tintin will be released in December 2011, and stars Jamie Bell, Daniel Craig, Andy Serkis, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.

Just over two weeks ago we heard details on sci-fi drama Real Steel from director Shawn Levy, and now Variety have confirmed that Hugh Jackman will indeed by playing the lead. They also have details on the budget and when filming will begin.

The DreamWorks principals have greenlit the “Rocky”-esque robot tale “Real Steel,” to star Hugh Jackman, as their first pic since raising $650 million from both J.P. Morgan Securities and Reliance Big Pictures and an additional $175 million from Disney, which will distrib DreamWorks titles.

Based on a short story by Richard Matheson, “Real Steel” was one of 17 projects that Spielberg and Snider took as part of DreamWorks’ split from Paramount last year.

Insiders say DreamWorks will make the pic on a budget of about $80 million — a far cry from the average price tag for sci-fi event films like “Transformers” or “Avatar.” DreamWorks plans to be the sole financier on the project, though Paramount can opt in for half. No decision will likely be made on Paramount’s end for several months.

Production starts in June.

The story centers on a fighter who has to reinvent himself when human boxers are replaced by robots. Jackman will play a struggling Robot Boxing promoter who finds a discarded robot that always seems to win. He also discovers he has a 11-year-old son, and they bond as the robot brawls its way toward the top.

It will be interesting to see how Shawn Levy, known for directing comedies such as Night at the Museum and Cheaper by the Dozen, will handle a sci-fi drama with a rather moderate budget.

While on the rounds promoting the DVD for Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian director Shawn Levy was asked about Real Steel, a sci-fi film that would see Hugh Jackman boxing Rocky-style against robots.

From Sci-Fi Wire:

“Hugh Jackman plays a former boxer who can therefore no longer do the only thing he was ever good at and has to make his way in this new world,” Levy said in an exclusive interview. “It’s faithful to the story in that that story was very much about a down-on-his-luck, slightly desperate journeyman who works in this robot boxing sport and who is desperately needing redemption and one last shot. The movie is more Rocky than Transformers.”

Levy has not cast the main character’s son yet but has a good idea about the robots. “They are most definitely not Transformers, not Terminators, definitely not WALL-Es, either,” Levy said. “Unlike a lot of these others, these are human-built, human-scale fighting machines. They are built for human spectacle. People in this movie have gotten bored with human carnage and human violence. So in the quest for more, more, more, this sport has evolved to this.”

According to Levy Steven Spielberg offered him the movie and after directing a bunch of comedies he wanted to do something different, so he accepted. I would gladly see the movie just based on the plot. The last time I saw robots boxing was in an episode of Futurama, and I wanted more!

For years there has been talk of a Jurassic Park 4, however it has never moved out of the development/scripting stage. In the past we have heard rumours of it revolving around the extinction, and another about dinosaurs with guns attached to them, however it seems those ideas have been scrapped.

While promoting The Wolfman Jurassic Park III director Joe Johnston spoke about a possible return to the franchise:

Joe Johnston: Well, there is a great story for the fourth one that I would be interested in getting involved with and it’s nothing like the first three. It sort of takes the franchise off in a completely different direction, which is the only way I would want to get involved.

Harry: Another movie about a group of people struggling to survive a dinosaur attack is…

Joe Johnston: We’ve done that and it’s been done three times and I figure it’s…

Harry: Stay away from that island. Don’t go there!

Joe Johnston: Why would anybody go back to that island? It was hard enough to figure out the second and third reason for them to go, but it would take it off in a whole other trilogy basically, but when it gets to that level it’s sort of about studios and Steven’s thing and who knows. I think we are at that point where we are due for another one if we are going to do it. They had what four years between them? 1992… 1996 or 1997, and then 2001, so we are past due. I don’t know, but we will see.

We haven’t had a good dinosaur movie in years, so I would welcome a Jurassic Park 4 with open claws. No silly dinosaurs with guns though. I’m glad that script didn’t get the greenlight.

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!

The state of the fifth Indiana Jones movie is still something of a mystery. In the sense that we know it’s happening and that the story probably exists on one of George Lucas’ laptops somewhere. The most recent update we received was from Harrison Ford who suggested that the MacGuffin has been settled on and a script might possibly exist.

Now, from Ireland Online – complete with all the grains of salt this source comes with – is suggesting that Indy 5 might bring Sean Connery out of retirement:

The 79-year-old actor turned down the chance to reprise his role as the father of the daredevil archaeologist in last movie ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’, and the script hinted his character Professor Henry Jones had passed away.

However, creators on the next movie, the fifth in the hugely successful franchise, are planning to bring Henry back.

A source said: “Steven Spielberg has been working on a script with George Lucas and there is an element of the story that could see Sean returning. Anything is possible in these movies and if Sean wants to return he will become central to the new story.”

Central to the new story, you say? ZOMBIES!, says I. Zombie Henry Jones could be the next fridge to be nuked.

In an article from Variety about Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln movie (which he still plans to make) is this small nugget of news:

Spielberg is presently focusing on his “reimagining” of “Harvey,” with Robert Downey Jr. possibly playing the man who sees an invisible rabbit.

We heard last month that Harvey would be Spielberg’s next movie, however we haven’t heard any more details, and this is the first time we’ve heard any news on casting since Tom Hanks said he wouldn’t be taking on the role. If Downey Jr. does join the movie we should have confirmation soon as Spielberg aims to begin production early next year.

Harvey is the story of an amiable eccentric, Elwood P. Dowd, and his friendship with a six and a half feet tall invisible rabbit and how this affects every member of his family and his community.