Jamie Bell & Daniel Craig join TINTIN. Full plot & cast just one click away!

by Matt Holmes

Jamie Bell will motion capure and voice TINTIN, Daniel Craig will play "the nefarious" villain Pirate Red Rackham in the joint 3-D animated Steven Spielberg/Peter Jackson venture at Paramount and Sony. Toby Jones, Gad Elmaleh, Mackenzie Crook round out the cast which we already know has Andy Serkis playing Captain Haddock and British comedy duo Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as The Thompson Twins. The movie will be based on THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN: THE SECRET OF THE UNICORN and has been written by Steven Moffat (DR. WHO) with some help from Edgar Wright (HOT FUZZ/SHAUN OF THE DEAD) and Joe Cornish (one half of comedy duo Adam and Joe) who have contributed according to a press release at Coming Soon. unicorn

The Secret of the Unicorn was one of the first truly great Tintin adventures and Herge's personal favorite, combining a puzzling mystery with a ripping pirate yarn. When Tintin finds a magnificent model ship in the street market, his attempt to buy it for Captain Haddock leads him on a trail of pickpockets, burglars, and secret treasure, and Haddock enthralls him with a tale of his seafaring ancestor, Sir Francis Haddock (who was exclaiming "Thundering typhoons!" generations before the Captain ever did), and his fateful encounter with the fearsome pirate Red Rackham. The story is also notable for Herge's fantastic eye for ship detail as well as the first appearances of Nestor and Marlinspike Hall. The Secret of the Unicorn was Tintin's first official two-book adventure, continued in Red Rackham's Treasure.
The movie is set for a release in 2011 and will be directed by Steven Spielberg. The second part of the trilogy will be directed by Peter Jackson sometime later with the helmer for the third still undecided (though both have claimed it will be one or the other, they won't bring someone new in). Shooting begins imminently! Certainly Hollywood thinks the motion captured 3-D animated technology has a big place in the future of the industry. We got Tim Burton on ALICE IN WONDERLAND, a third movie from Robert Zemeckis with the technology in A CHRISTMAS CAROL and now of course Spielberg/Jackson's TINTIN. Out of the three... TINTIN is the one I'm banking on the most, it lends itself the best to this technology. Gonna be interesting to see how they all turn out and whether we see another set of three high profile directors take up the challenge.
Editor-in-chief
Editor-in-chief

Matt Holmes is the co-founder of What Culture, formerly known as Obsessed With Film. He has been blogging about pop culture and entertainment since 2006 and has written over 10,000 articles.