First Trailer To Arrive Tomorrow Morning
For one of the most eagerly anticipated films of the year, at least everywhere except the U.S, word’s been strangely quiet on “The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn.” Uniting blockbuster giants Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson for the first time (the former’s directing, the latter producing), on an adaptation of the massively successful graphic novel series about a Belgian boy detective, his dog Snowy, his best friend, a drunken sea captain, and the adventures they go on, we had a glimpse of a handful of images before Christmas, but little since then. We guess because the film’s being realized in performance-capture computer animation, and so Sony and Paramount have presumably had to wait until the polish has been put on properly.
But it looks like the marketing onslaught is getting underway, as Empire have debuted the first teaser poster for the film, and it’s not too shabby at all, showing Tintin and Snowy atop a globe, with some stirring period adventure tropes — camels, sea-planes, a burning pirate ship — behind them. Nothing earth-shattering, to be sure, but considering how weak many of the tentpole posters have been this year (*cough* “X-Men: First Class“), it’s a good start: we particularly like the noirish shadows on our heroes.
Most interestingly of all, they seem to be highlighting the reason we’re most excited about the film. None of the film’s starry cast — Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Daniel Craig, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Toby Jones — make it on to the one-sheet, but the names of the writers do, something of an unusual occurrence. That sound you hear is the sickly little mole people of the WGA cheering. But then, when you’ve got a script by Steven Moffat, currently doing a bang-up job as showrunner of the BBC’s cult sci-fi show “Doctor Who” (as well as being responsible for some of the best episodes in the show’s 50 year history), “Hot Fuzz” and “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” writer-director Edgar Wright, and Joe Cornish, the man behind the thoroughly superb “Attack the Block,” we can see why you’d want to shout it from the rooftops. Or in this case, globetops.
Empire, who must have given Hergé‘s grandson an internship to get the kind of access they’re getting to the project, will also be debuting a trailer for the film on their site tomorrow morning, and that’s when the proof will be in the pudding. Will Tintin and co. get lodged in the uncanny valley, or could this be a real return to form for Spielberg, aided by his world-class screenwriters? “The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn” (the subtitle strangely absent from the poster) lands in Europe on October 26th, ahead of its U.S. release on December 23rd, a mere five days before Spielberg’s other 2011 release, “War Horse.”
Update: AICN have also premiered the domestic teaser one-sheet, which you can find below.