DISCOVER HOW FAR ADVENTURE WILL TAKE YOU WITH TINTIN

Inventiveness of the animation genre is expected from the collaboration between Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson who teamed up for the first entry in a planned trilogy of films adapted from the famous Belgian comics “The Adventures of Tintin” by Georges "Hergé" Remi. The series is one of the most popular European comics of the 20th century, with translations published in more than 80 languages and more than 350 million copies of the books sold to date. Its popularity around the world has been attributed to its "universal appeal" and its ability to transcend "time, language and culture." Set during a largely realistic 20th century, Tintin’s plots straddle a variety of genres: swashbuckling adventures with elements of fantasy, mysteries, political thrillers, and science fiction. Hero of the series, Tintin, is a young Belgian reporter who’s aided in his adventures from the beginning by his faithful fox terrier dog Snowy. Later, popular additions to the cast included the brash, cynical and grumpy Captain Haddock, the highly intelligent but hearing-impaired Professor Calculus and other supporting characters such as the incompetent detectives Thomson and Thompson. Hergé himself features in several of the comics as a background character, as do his assistants in some instances. “The Crab with the Golden Claws” (1947) is the first successful attempt to adapt one of the comics into a feature film. The film was a black-and-white stop-motion puppet production created by a small Belgian studio. Many of the stories are in fact produced with a very cinematic style and were a big influence on Spielberg when he came up with "Raiders of the Lost Ark". Spielberg’s new movie adaptation for the classic series itself will be a motion capture 3-D film that’s based on three stories published in the 1940s, “The Crab with the Golden Claws”, “The Secret of the Unicorn” and “Red Rackham's Treasure”.While the use of motion capture animation didn't enthuse many who wanted a live-action take, it will certainly allow the filmmakers to preserve Herge's unique style of artwork while updating it with more realistic textures. But in terms of talent behind the screen, there couldn't be any finer. While Spielberg's directing, Peter Jackson and Kathleen Kennedy are producing, John Williams is doing the score, and beloved British filmmaker Edgar Wright ("Shaun of the Dead," "Scott Pilgrim") and current "Doctor Who" and "Sherlock" showrunner Steven Moffat adapted the script. Young actor Jamie Bell is the voice for Tintin, Andy Serkis is Captain Haddock while Simon Pegg & Nick Frost are the eccentric Thompson & Thomson. Even the small supporting parts are populated by the likes of Daniel Craig, Daniel Mays, Toby Jones, Tony Curran, Mackenzie Crook and Kim Stengel. However, "Tintin" is a title that's still barely known within the United States and that does bring up concern for the movie release in America. On the other hand, internationally the film has a solid chance since Herge's work was a staple in many households in Europe, Australia, Asia and other parts of the world. And that’s pretty much answered why the movie was set to open in October throughout much of the world except the States where it will be released at the end of the year.Facts behind the secret of the unicorn:

# “The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn” is the first animated film directed by Steven Spielberg also his first comic-book adaptation.

# Spielberg is the first Oscar-winning director to direct a Nickelodeon film. Peter Jackson (the sequel's director) will be the second.

# Spielberg first acquired rights to “Tintin” after Hergé's death in 1983, and re-optioned them in 2002. Filming was due to begin in October 2008 for a 2010 release, but release was delayed to 2011 after Universal opted out of producing the film with Paramount, who provided $30 million on pre-production. Sony later chose to co-produce the films.

# Universal turned down their option to co-produce the film, citing the low box office of “Monster House” and “Beowulf” as well as the directors' usual request for 30% of the gross.

# The project delay resulted in Thomas Sangster, who had been cast as Tintin, departing from the project. Producer Peter Jackson suggested Jamie Bell take on the role, having cast him as Jimmy in his “King Kong” remake.# The comics' creator Hergé, who didn't like the previous live action film versions and the cartoon, became a fan of Spielberg. Michael Farr, author of “Tintin: The Complete Companion”, recalled Hergé "thought Spielberg was the only person who could ever do Tintin justice".

# Jackson, whose company Weta Digital is providing the computer animation, intends to direct a sequel. Spielberg and Jackson also hope to co-direct a third film.

# Originally, Spielberg was going to do a live-action adaptation of Tintin, and called Jackson to ask if his VFX company Weta Digital would work on the film, in particular creating a CGI Snowy. Jackson, as it turned out, was a longtime fan of Tintin, and convinced Spielberg that live action would not do justice to the comic books, and that motion capture was the best way of representing Hergé's world of Tintin. However, Snowy would still be CGI.

# To prepare for his role as Captain Haddock, Andy Serkis read the majority of the "Tintin" comics. He later commented that they had a surreal quality, similar to the Monty Python films. Serkis also plays Haddock's ancestor Sir Francis Haddock in flashbacks.

# Screenwriter Steven Moffat claims he was "love-bombed" by Spielberg into writing the script for this film, with Spielberg promising to shield him from studio interference with his writing. Moffat finished a draft of the script, but could not polish it because of the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike, and afterwards becoming executive producer of “Doctor Who”. Spielberg and Jackson amiably allowed him to leave and fulfill his duty to the series (Jackson being a fan of the Doctor), and brought in Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish to rewrite Moffat's draft.

# Edgar Wright, a long time collaborator with Pegg and Frost, is believed to be providing dialogue for Thomson and Thompson characters.

# Spielberg shot his portion of the film in 32 days (taking up March 2009). Jackson was present for the first week of filming, and supervised the rest of the shoot via a specially made iChat videoconferencing program. Simon Pegg said Jackson's voice would "be coming over the Tannoy like God."

# Jackson took the hands-on approach to directing Weta Digital during postproduction, which Spielberg supervised through videoconferencing. Jackson also begin development for the second film for which he will be officially credited as director. Spielberg says "there will be no cell phones, no TV sets, no modern cars. Just timeless Europe."

# Spielberg would try to treat the film like live-action, moving his camera around. He revealed, "Every movie I made, up until Tintin, I always kept one eye closed when I've been framing a shot," because he wanted to see the movie in 2-D, the way viewers would. "On Tintin, I have both of my eyes open." Spielberg enjoyed working with the virtual camera so much, he did a lot of his own camera work in the movie.

# A week of filming took place in Playa Vista, Los Angeles, California, on the stage where James Cameron shot “Avatar”.

# During filming, various directors including Guillermo del Toro, Stephen Daldry and David Fincher visited.

# When the film was in development in 1984, Spielberg wanted Jack Nicholson to play Captain Haddock.

# Danny deVito was considered for the role of Senor Oliveira de Figueira, but the character was cut from the script.

Mark your calendar on:

Oct 26, 2011: Belgium, France, Ireland, Netherlands, Uk

Oct 27: Denmark, Germany, Portugal, Russia

Oct 28: Estonia, Italy, Norway, Romania, Spain, Sweden

Nov 03: Greece, Hungary

Nov 04: Finland, Poland, Turkey

Nov 10: Argentina, Peru, Singapore, Thailand

Nov 11: India

Nov 24: Hong Kong

Dec 01: Japan

Dec 23: Canada, UDA

Jan 20, 2012: BrazilSources: IMDB, Wikipedia – Photos courtesy of Paramount Pictures