Monday 8 March 2010

Tintin Movie The Secret of the Unicorn

Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are teaming up to direct and produce a Tintin movie trilogy under the aegis of Dreamworks. Tintin is a popular European comic-strip hero created by the Belgian writer Herge eighty years ago: the series follow a young journalist in his adventures around the world. Steven Spielberg is set to direct the first Tintin movie which is titled 'The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn'. And Peter Jackson is likely to direct the Tintin sequel. Tintin will be starring Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and Daniel Craig. The first Tintin movie will be released on December 23, 2011.

Director Steven Spielberg explains why the film will be produced in full digital 3-D using performance capture technology instead of a full live-action film:

"It was based on my respect for the art of Hergé and wanting to get as close to that art as I could. Hergé wrote about fictional people in a real world, not in a fantasy universe, It was the real universe he was working with, and he used National Geographic to research his adventure stories. It just seemed that live action would be too stylized for an audience to relate to. You’d have to have costumes that are a little outrageous when you see actors wearing them. The costumes seem to fit better when the medium chosen is a digital one."
Steven Spielberg

So they want to honor the distinctive look of the characters and world that Herge created. Well I can understand that, plus I kind of agree that a real Tintin would look a bit strange, like in that 1964 Tintin movie:

So a movie done in CGI with motion capture (like Beowulf and Avatar) is the best way to go I think!

Here's a behind-the-scenes picture of Tintin:
(Click on the picture to enlarge it.)
Plot of Tintin:
"Combining the stories of The Crab with the Golden Claws, The Shooting Star, The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham's Treasure, the film depicts Tintin's (Jamie Bell) first encounter with Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis) and the discovery of a clue to the treasure of his ancestor Sir Francis Haddock. They set out to find it with protection from a prison escapee who tried to get the treasure as well as Detectives Thompson and Thomson (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost)."

I'm impatient to see what Tintin will look like!
:)

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