The Adventures Of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn has had one hell of a post-production period. Spielberg shot the motion-capture footage for the CG movie last year, but it won’t arrive in cinemas until December 2011, giving him time to shoot and complete War Horse before the movie comes out.
However while there’s been talk of the movie using plenty of innovative effects, we’ve been given little detail about what it would eventually look like, and whether it would be more cartoony or head into the uncanny valley of near-live-action CG, that Robert Zemeckis has played with in the likes of The Polar Express and Beowulf. Regardging the look of the movie, producer Peter Jackson had this to say, With live action youre going to have actors pretending to be Captain Haddock and Tintin. Youd be casting people to look like them. Its not really going to feel like the Tintin Hergé drew. Its going to be somewhat different. With CGI we can bring Hergés world to life, keep the stylised caricatured faces, keep everything looking like Hergés artwork, but make it photo-real.
Well now Empire has revealed the first images from the film, which is the cover movie of their latest issue, and it does indeed seem we’re looking at a movie that looks almost too close to reality for comfort, while retaining a cartoon-ish edge. Take a look above and below for the new pics, as well as a new version of a classic Tintin image that grace’s Empire’s cover (the mag’s out Nov. 4th and promises more images, plus chats with the cast and crew).
By the way, the pictures feature Tintin and Captain Haddock, with Jamie Bell and Andy Serkis playing their motion cpature counterparts.