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.

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.

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!

Update: I made a mistake. Williams didn’t say it himself, it was Conrad Pope (one of his orchestrator).

Composer John Williams has worked with Steven Spielberg many times over his long career and is the man behind the legendary music from Indiana Jones, E.T, Jurrasic Park and Jaws. So when it was announced Williams would be scoring The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn I knew we’d be getting something special. Funnily enough William’s himself thinks so too:

From The Examiner:

I’m currently orchestrating a large piece with a number of ideas. The main theme is highly energetic, filled with great tonal twists and turns, reflecting, I suspect, Tintin’s heroic energy. It will become a classic, I think. To give more information would be to reveal things that I don’t … want to say.

We are at the beginning of the process. The main scoring sessions are off in February.

Also, let me say with regard to Tintin, I believe, as with “Potter” and Catch Me if you Can, people will be both surprised and not surprised by how the music is both “expected” and “UN-expected”— before you hear it.

Usually when someone starts declaring their work a ‘classic’ before they have even finished it I get the feeling they are a bit arrogant and believe their own hype too much. But this is John Williams. He’s proved throughout his career that he can create memorable music that will be remembered for years to come, and in some cases define a film. I have no reason to believe he won’t do the same with Tintin.

It’s not very often that we hear from stuntmen, however MovieLine got the chance to interview Stunt Choreographer of the Year Garrett Warren and he spoke about a few upcoming movies he has worked on, including Iron Man 2 and Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn.

Below is what he had to say about being a stunt double for Mickey Rourke:

I had brought two whips with me that are made of kangaroo hide that are incredibly well made. You can perform all sorts of tricks and cracks with them. In the movie, you won’t see those whips. They’ll digitally replace it with other types of whips. I don’t know if I’m at liberty to say what the whips will look like, but they’re going to be these super whips that have an awful lot of power. They can cut through cars, they can do an awful lot of damage. And when the movie comes out, you’ll see that he doesn’t do just whip-cracks and grabbing people. He lays waste to an awful lot of vehicles and street pieces and other things.

At one point, Whiplash had to get hit by a car, and Mickey did the lead up to the stunt, and I did the stunt where the car came in and hit me and took me to the fence. So yes, you’ll see a combination of Mickey and myself. And when it comes to the whip routine, I have to admit, Mickey Rourke did a really good job with the whips. However, the suit was very painful at times. It was this big metal piece that wasn’t very comfortable, so he didn’t always want to do the whip routines every take. So I’d go in and do the whip routines.

He also has good things to say about Tintin:

It’s truly an amazing movie. I was a sleeper to me. It took me by surprise. We did a test for it two years before we shot it, and when we did the test it was fun and interesting. But oh my gosh — when we finally saw the movie, it was amazing. The stuff that Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson came up with, the performances of Daniel Craig, Jamie Bell, Simon Pegg, Andy Serkis — oh my goodness. You cannot imagine what those guys can do to words on a page. It’s one of the better movies that people are going to see, especially when it comes to being an animated movie.

It looks an awful lot like the cartoon. They really wanted to bring the cartoon to life. So if you know the cartoon, or have seen the books, that’s what it looks like. It’s beautiful. You would have thought to yourself that they would have tried to go for a more realistic look, but they’re actually trying to preserve the look and essence of the original Tintin characters.

Garrett Warren also talks about working on Avatar, which you can read by clicking here!

The Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson recently spoke to Stuff.co.nz about his upcoming projects, one of which is The Lovely Bones which we would have already seen by now if Paramount didn’t push it back to December. The studio think the film, which centers on a young girl who has been murdered and watches over her family – and her killer – from heaven, is Oscar bait.

“When we showed them the cut late last year, they decided to delay the release until December to plop it into the “awards season”, which is a nice vote of confidence in the movie,” Jackson said. The delay meant he had more time to work on the final cut and spend more time on visual effects. He wished he had had the same luxury with his last film, King Kong. “I wish we had this time on King Kong, which we badly wanted to reduce by 20 minutes, but we ran out of time before figuring out how to do it,” he said.

He also spoke about The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn and The Hobbit which will both be released in December 2011. I know Jackson has a thing for December release dates (Lord of the Rings trilogy, King Kong, The Lovely Bones) but having two of his films competing against each other isn’t a good idea.

Jackson said while Steven Spielberg directed the first Tintin film in Los Angeles, he was helping “beef up” some of the chase scenes and was working on post production at Weta Digital in Wellington.

Jackson said he would start work as the director of the second Tintin film about a year from now. He and Spielberg were also still open to co-directing the third Tintin film, he said.

Jackson is an executive producer and co-writer of The Hobbit. He said shooting was scheduled to begin in March next year. Despite rumours, the two-part film, directed by Mexican film-maker Guillermo del Toro, would not be 3D.

Peter Jackson will have a busy year next year and I can imagine he will be hopping between The Hobbit and Tintin sets. We knew The Hobbit would start filming sometime next year, so it’s good to know they have a month in sight. Guillermo del Toro and the gang have around 8 months to decide who in Middle Earth will play Bilbo Baggins and the rest of the characters.

Paramount and Sony have made some big decisions regarding Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson’s The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn. According to Variety the studios have announced that the film will be released in 3D, which was expected considering the idea to make Tintin occurred when Spielberg and Jackson where playing around with the technology on the set of James Cameron’s Avatar. The studios have also announced that the film will be released in December 2011…in the US. Tintin will be released internationally in October and November, which at first seems like a risky move, but once explained the decision seems well thought out.

Paramount Pictures and Sony Pictures Entertainment unveiled plans to release the motion capture pic Stateside on Dec. 23, 2011. But in an unusual move, film will launch internationally in late October and early November 2011, with Sony Pictures Releasing Intl. handling Continental Europe, Eastern Europe, Latin America and India, and Paramount distributing the film in Asia, Australia, the U.K. and all other English-speaking territories.

The decision signals the two studios’ belief that the property, which has been translated into 70 languages, shows stronger potential overseas than domestically. Not surprisingly, the film’s cast skews international with Brit Jamie Bell starring as the intrepid young reporter. Daniel Craig, Andy Serkis, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Gad Elmaleh, Toby Jones and Mackenzie Crook round out the cast.

The two studios also revealed that they will release “Tintin” in 3-D, a move that had been mulled for several months. Insiders said the dailies convinced them that 3-D would offer the best rendition.

Tintin is popular overseas and it is pretty well known here in the UK thanks to a 90’s cartoon which I enjoyed as a child. One of the reasons both Paramount and Sony are working together on this is due to the property not being well known in the US, which meant there was a larger risk involved. Universal backed out of financing it last September which sent Spielberg and Peter Jackson on an epic quest to get financing from another studio. Paramount eventually offered them $135 million, however the idea was to film Tintin in 3D with photorealistic performance-capture technology, so the pair held out for a better deal. After what I expect was a long uncomfortable silence, one of the parties suggested getting another studio in on the action, so along came Sony.

[The cool Tintin image was made by Benef]

Steven Spielberg invited Empire to the set of The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn and the shot above was taken during a few moments of down time on the set. It shows Jamie Bell (Tintin) and Andy Serkis (Captain Haddock) talking with Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson.

Jackson is currently work with WETA to turn them dots, costumes and hi-tech helmets into “pure awesomeness” according to Empire.

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.