First images for The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn

Empire has gotten its grubby little mitts on the exclusive first images of Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson’s forthcoming collaboration The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn.

This is the first of a planned trilogy of movie, based on Hergé’s classic comic creation, which will be directed by the two cinematic giants.

The movie features motion-captured performances from Jamie Bell as Tintin, Andy Serkis as Captain Haddock, with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as Thompson and Thomson. Daniel Craig plays Red Rackham, with additional support from Cary Elwes, Toby Jones, Mackenzie Crook and Daniel Mays.

The first image is a specially-created cover that effects house Weta made as a riff on the iconic image of Tintin and his dog Snowy picked out by a spotlight as they are running. As you can see the mo-capped performances are designed to allow the movie to be entirely CGI-animated in a style similar to the comics.

The second and third image are two stills from the movie. The first shows Serkis’ Captain Haddock, with the second featuring Haddock and Tintin adrift at sea and signalling for help.

They are not the most impressive images I’ve ever seen, but I’m still hoping for great things from the movie. The entirely 3D adventure will be released December 23rd, 2011.