As soon as I read my first of the books, Tintin never strayed far from my thoughts and heart. I knew Tintin and I were destined for some kind of collaboration . . . and a journey of discovery.” — Steven Spielberg

In a series of heart-stopping adventures around the globe, the graphic novel character Tintin became a planetary sensation. The intrepid reporter with the funny coif and the courage to always do the right thing in the most suspenseful situations has ever since been a worldwide hero to young readers and a vivid inspiration to artists. The Tintin graphic novels, written and drawn by Georges Remi under the pen name Hergé, have crossed diverse cultures, multiple generations and even war-torn borders. A pop cultural phenomenon of lasting magnitude, they have been translated into more than 100 languages; and have sold more than 250 million copies... and counting.

Yet for all the far-flung places Tintin has travelled — from Peru to Tibet to the moon — the one place he has yet to venture is the modern movie screen. That changes with The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, which not only brings the series to worldwide movie audiences for the first time but does so in an inventive new way that pushes the creative envelope of 21st century storytelling while staying true to Hergé’s inimitable and timeless visual style.

The source of the series’s sustained power has always been the way its scruffy, loveable characters and its passport to exotic lands and courageous battles against wrongdoers have tied together people who experienced his adventures with a common bond.

SPIELBERG, JACKSON AND A THING FOR TINTIN

Peter Jackson (left) and Steven Spielberg on the sets of The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn

That’s what happened with Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson, who are brought together for the first time as collaborators by their passion for Hergé’s tantalising tales. Each came across Tintin at entirely different times and in divergent ways. Yet their passion for the characters’ wide-open cinematic possibilities is the same. Neither could resist the excitement of trying to fuse the unbridled fun of Hergé’s drawings with state-of-the-art movie technology and inspired, emotion-rich performances to create an original motion picture experience befitting of Tintin’s vast legacy.

“Tintin is an eager reporter who chases fragments of clues that suddenly blow up into these amazing, globe-trotting adventures,” Spielberg describes. “What makes him so intriguing is his relentless pursuit of the truth, although that always leads him down some treacherous paths. It often seems he’s gotten himself into terrible trouble, but somehow, he finds a way out. From the first reading, I knew that Tintin and I were destined for some kind of collaboration.”

Peter Jackson grew up with Tintin and had been influenced by his adventures. As a boy in New Zealand, long before he began a filmmaking career that includes the most lauded fantasy trilogy in movie history: The Lord of the Rings series, Jackson devoured each Tintin book he could get his hands on, even struggling through the French editions. “When you’re young, you can easily imagine yourself going on these adventures that Tintin gets himself into,” Jackson notes. “They tap into that fundamental sense of adventure we all have.”

Both men saw the cinematic potential of Tintin embedded in its DNA. “We were all struck by the fact that Hergé was telling stories through what were, in a sense, these beautiful storyboards that were simple, clear and forceful in their narrative power,” says Spielberg’s long-time partner, Kathleen Kennedy, who would ultimately pair up with Jackson to produce.

Spielberg first reached out to Hergé as early as 1983 — and found the Belgian artist deeply enthusiastic about placing his clever character in the filmmaker’s hands. But tragically, Hergé passed away before the two could meet. Later, his widow, Fanny Rodwell, fulfilled his wishes, granting the rights to Spielberg.

“Hergé picked Steven as the only director he thought could do a film based on his work,” says executive producer Stephane Sperry, who has been involved with the Tintin property for decades and a fan for even longer. “And Steven has always been respectful of that.”

The filmmakers worked closely with Nick and Fanny Rodwell, consulting with the two careful custodians of Hergé’s legacy and experts on all things Tintin. “The most important thing was to honour Hergé and get as close to his very unique sense of palette and portraiture as possible. Every single panel of his told a story in cinematic terms,” observes the director. “There was kinetic energy in every pose and action, and it was almost as if he was trying to squeeze 24 frames into a single frame, and succeeding. That was, I think, the genius of Hergé. Each of his stories had the essence of a movie — and now we could be true to that.”

Spielberg was convinced right away that Jackson was the ideal partner. “Peter told me, ‘If you were here right now, you would see over my shoulder the entire series of Hergé’s books, and I would love to be a part of this,’” Spielberg recalls. “And thus began our process of finding a way to capture that artistic style that so defines Hergé and Tintin, and bring it to the screen.”

Jackson couldn’t wait to tackle the task. “I was thrilled that Steven invited me onboard,” he says. “Steven really is quite similar to the Tintin character,” Jackson comments. “He’s young at heart. He’s very curious. He has a great love of adventure, and his sense of humour pretty much matches what Hergé brought to Tintin. It’s a perfect match.”

In addition to serving as producer for the first film, Spielberg asked Jackson if he would direct the second film in the series. Jackson agreed, and with the blessing and co-operation of Fanny and Nick Rodwell, and the estate of Hergé, the adventure began. Fanny, who is now the president of the Hergé Studios in Brussels, explains, “It was a special honour for us to be associated with these exceptional, creative filmmakers who had our full confidence to bring Tintin to his biggest adventures on the biggest screens. Hergé himself once said, ‘I consider my stories as movies.’ How prophetic!”

THREE-IN-ONE SCRIPT

In close consultation with the Hergé Estate, the filmmakers enlisted screenwriters Steven Moffat and the team of Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish to craft the adaptation. To introduce audiences to the maximum breadth of Tintin and his various allies and enemies, the filmmakers decided to combine three favourite Tintin books — The Crab with the Golden Claws, The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham’s Treasure — into a singular plot that would keep modern moviegoers exhilarated.

The books were the screenwriters’ lodestar. “Hergé’s stories pull you in with vibrant colours and adventures, but they are so much more — they’re filled with moral concepts, a sense of travel and exoticism, while always introducing you to the grandness of the world and to scientific ideas. I think that’s one of the reasons they’re so central to millions of children’s imaginations — and we wanted to bring all that scope to the screenplay,” sums up Cornish.

They were also guided by the conceptual approach of Spielberg and Jackson who saw elements of film noir, Hitchcockian suspense and special-effects thrillers deep inside Hergé’s playful line drawings — and brought them to the fore. The result, Spielberg says is “part-mystery, part-detective story, as well as a pure unapologetic adventure, all built around a tremendous story of friendship, loyalty and belief between Captain Haddock and Tintin.”

DESIGNING THE WORLD OF TINTIN

Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson share not only fertile imaginations but also a drive to venture into frontier realms. From extra-terrestrials to Middle Earth, they have forged unforgettable characters and worlds so breathtakingly original they could never have been experienced outside a movie theatre. And yet, neither had ever applied their skills and artistry to a 3D animated motion picture. Spielberg and Jackson’s fealty was first and foremost to the Tintin legacy — and their shared passion for Hergé’s transporting drawing style inspired the visual design into a fully animated CG film from Day One.

Early on, while the script was still being written, the art department and animation team were set up, and collaborators on both sides of the Pacific began brainstorming ideas for the quirk-filled characters and spicy settings for Tintin. One of the first big decisions they made was to keep the period and texture of the story unmoored in time — set in a kind of eternal noir universe, with dark shadows lurking around every corner.

“These stories could take place in the ’30s, the ’50s, the ’80s or now,” notes Spielberg, “and that’s part of their beauty that we wanted to preserve. What we didn’t want in our movie were cellphones, television sets or modern automobiles. Our design cues came first from Hergé, and not from any presumed period or setting.”

Adds Jackson: “We wanted the film to have the retro, edgy feel of a crime drama. That’s not Tintin himself, but the world that Tintin lives in. There’s so much suspense in the story that we felt we could incorporate people with trench coats, hats down in the rain, street lights casting shadows on the wet pavement — that’s the world we’ve created for our Tintin to live in.”

Next, the artists, designers and animators started envisioning what Hergé’s art would look like if it existed in three-dimensional space. Despite having been drawn decades ago, the artwork lent itself organically to this, says Richard Taylor, Weta Workshop’s co-owner and the film’s design and effects superviser. “When you look at Herge’s black pen drawings with watercolour washed in flat on the page, all you have to do is close your eyes and begin to imagine the world of Tintin. You can’t help but see it in 3D,” he muses.

HERGE’S RULES OF PURE REALITY

It worked so well in part because Hergé had left behind the rules of pure reality when drawing Tintin’s escapades in the first place. “The lines of what Hergé drew were not necessarily accurate,” says senior visual effects superviser Joe Letteri. “He wasn’t trying to draft exactly what he saw — and we wanted to maintain those exaggerated qualities in the same way that he did. A big part of the design study was to look at what he did, but then to imagine it from different points of view. And that allowed us to start building up a vocabulary of how you would construct his worlds in a wholly 3D animated realm.”

To bring Hergé’s world alive so audiences can sense the very wind whipping through the virtual air, the art department researched imagery and locations that might represent the various environments where Tintin, Snowy and Haddock find themselves, from the boiling high seas of a stormy ocean to the shifting pink sands of the Sahara desert. A favourite of the designers was Hergé’s imaginary city of Bagghar, Morocco, a seductive realm of Far East intrigue.

“We looked at many different styles of North African structures, patterns and archways,” says conceptual designer Rebekah Tisch, “and were able to use fascinating shapes and colours to create Bagghar. It left me with a real passion to go see the world — and I hope that people watching Tintin will feel that same fusion of excitement and colour.”

On an invitation from Fanny and Nick Rodwell of the Hergé Foundation, lead conceptual designer Chris Guise travelled to Brussels to conduct close-up research into Tintin’s native locale, soaking in the atmosphere that led to the creation of his apartment at 26 Labrador Road and the silhouette of Captain Haddocks’s country home at Marlinspike Hall.

“Chris immersed himself completely in Hergé’s world and looked for his early inspirational images, then came back just bubbling over with a fully rounded sense of place,” remarks Richard Taylor.

Digital model superviser Marco Revelant further added to the process with his passion for model ships, which are so key to the adventure. Revelant travelled to the Musée de la Marin in Paris to visually dissect the ships on which Hergé based the Brilliant and The Unicorn. “Hergé’s designs are a bit more elaborate yet reduced in size,” says Revelant. “We applied those same adjustments to our digital models.”

Visual effects art director Kim Sinclair looked high and low for authentic vehicles, such as the 1937 Ford seen in the books that were then scanned into the computer to be recreated digitally. “Hergé did some meticulous research into the vehicles, like the Ford and the sea plane, and we were able to know the model and year, and even find the original manufacturer’s colour charts,” he explains.

But the most critical design element of all, from the start, was the characters themselves. From Haddock’s humour-spiked poses to the sky-ward texture of Tintin’s hair to the distinguishing shapes of detectives Thompson and Thomson’s moustaches to the emotions crossing Snowy’s snout, every nuance was debated, imagined, re-imagined and then fine-tuned during their intensive meetings.

“We looked at every character from every angle to make sure they had the Hergé facsimile,” Spielberg recounts. “We were never afraid to say, ‘Well, that particular mould of Captain Haddock’s face doesn’t look like we’re on key with the Hergé art.’”

THE CHARACTERS AND THE CAST

Behind each of the carefully crafted images is an inspired and skilled performance. A major part of the lure for the actors chosen for the film was Hergé’s inimitable characters, each with their own memorable quirks and foibles that had never been so deeply inhabited before. They include:

Tintin

To play the iconic role of the intrepid, boyish reporter who has mirrored countless dreams of adventure, the filmmakers chose Jamie Bell. “Jamie’s performance in Billy Elliot was astonishing to me, not just the subtlety of his acting, but the tremendous physical performance he gave,” Spielberg notes. “Peter and I both thought he had all the right qualities for Tintin.”

Growing up in England, Bell had been a Tintin fan since childhood. “There’s something about Hergé’s art that leaves an imprint on you. It’s unforgettable,” he muses. But now, he had the chance to imprint the character with tangible, human emotions and that thrilled him.

Screenwriter Joe Cornish says that Bell captures Tintin in the mould of the classic Spielberg Everyman — an ordinary kid who finds how extraordinary he can be when life demands it. “To me, he’s like a child’s idea of what it’s like to be a teenager,” Cornish says. “He can do amazing things, yet he maintains an innocence and an insatiable curiosity about the world, a sense that he’s looking for a way to do the right thing in any situation. You feel like anyone can aspire to be Tintin because all you need is the knowledge, the interest and the pureness of heart that takes him through these adventures.”

For Bell, this aspirational quality was the way into the character, taking him far beyond the forelock quiff in his hair that is his trademark. “When you see a young person who is so fearless and so adventurous the way Tintin is, it’s everything you want to be yourself,” he says. “Tintin is a very driven character, a very moral character, and I admire that. He will get to the bottom of things no matter what. But sometimes he’s wrong and that’s when he has to trust in Snowy.”

SNOWY

Snowy, of course, is Tintin’s trusty terrier and sometimes saviour. Cornish calls Snowy “almost an embodiment of Tintin’s subconscious” and the trick was animating the character to be both that and just a smart, funny little dog. Though Hergé often ascribed thought bubbles to Tintin’s canine friend, Spielberg felt they could bring Snowy to life in a richly expressive way without that textual effect.

“I think sometimes Tintin makes a great sidekick to Snowy, rather than the other way around,” Spielberg remarks of the much-loved character. “But we decided that if there’s any reality to Tintin at all, it’s that the dog doesn’t talk.”

Captain Haddock

When Tintin buys a model of the lost ship The Unicorn at a local market, he finds within it a secret that will land him on a hijacked sea freighter called the Karaboudjan, and, ultimately, introduce him to an unlikely but lifelong friend: Captain Haddock, a crusty ocean veteran with seawater in his veins and a bottle of whisky never far away, who will become at once a foil for Tintin and his

rough-and-tumble partner in adventure, through thick and thin.

The Captain has long been a favourite of Tintin fans — the gritty contrast to Tintin’s idealism with his endlessly colourful utterances (“Blistering barnacles!” “Thundering typhoons!”) and most of all, a generous, die-hard friend to Tintin.

“Haddock appears at first to be the last guy in the world you’d want tagging along on a dangerous escapade,” says Jackson. “But Tintin sees something else in him. I think Tintin sees the goodness in this man and understands who he can become.”

To play Haddock, Jackson suggested an actor he knew had what it would take to embody all the dynamics of the role: Andy Serkis. “Knowing Andy as well as I did, I knew he’d be absolutely terrific, so I arranged for him to meet Steven, who saw right away what he could bring to it,” he says.

Spielberg adds: “Andy and Jamie had fantastic chemistry as this iconic pairing of a youthful, moral straight shooter and an old, reprobate sea captain. They’re complete opposites, yet Captain Haddock brings many lessons to Tintin’s life, and Tintin really gives Haddock a chance to redeem himself.”

Serkis, who has been a fan of the comic since childhood, decided to give his character, whose origins are open to interpretation, a Scottish brogue that sets the tone for his journey. “It seemed appropriate that Haddock should have a kind of rawness and emotional availability,” Serkis explains. “He’s a great seaman and has great potential as a human being, but he’s kind of lost in self-pity, and it is Tintin, this boy, who helps him realise that he can connect with other people again.”

Sakharine

Captain Haddock’s turnabout comes as he and Tintin try to evade the threat of the film’s irascible villain: Ivan Ivanovitch Sakharine, who believes Tintin has unwittingly stolen the secret of The Unicorn and its long-lost treasure. Taking on the nefarious role is Daniel Craig, best known to filmgoers in the role of the far more noble British spy James Bond. Craig, who has garnered equal acclaim for his dramatic work in a wide variety of films, previously collaborated with Spielberg in the political thriller Munich. But he had never taken on a character quite like Sakharine before.

He relished the chance to cut loose with the mercurial bad-man. “I had a lot of fun with Sakharine, and tried to make him as evil and twisted and strange as I possibly could,” he says.

Thompson & Thomson

Adding further antics to Tintin’s adventures are Thompson and Thomson — two detectives distinguishable only by the shapes of their moustaches and the letter “p” in one of their names. To play the pair of ham-handed investigators, the filmmakers immediately had one common thought in mind: the comic team of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, who have brought their irreverent sensibilities to such hit films as Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.

“Peter and I knew we wanted to cast a team as Thompson and Thomson,” Spielberg says. “Then Peter suggested Simon and Nick, who are uniquely funny together and a wonderful addition to the cast.” Pegg and Frost realised they could have a blast with the detective duo. “We have a certain kind of synchronicity that fed into playing these two bumbling partners,” Pegg allows. “They’re in the great tradition of silent movie stars like Laurel and Hardy and Charlie Chaplin. They’re fastidious but ultimately faltering, and though they consider themselves to be the greatest detectives in the world, they’re clearly the worst. So, we got to do a lot of silly stuff.” They also had an opportunity to do what they do best: let their natural comic rapport unfold in the moment. “The difficult thing as actors was thinking about what the Thom(p)sons would do in between each panel,” Frost explains. “That’s where lots of characterisation came in for us.”

NESTOR, BIANCA AND MORE

Throughout the film, Thompson and Thomson are in the throes of what is, for them, hot pursuit of a pickpocket, Aristedes Silk, a role taken by Toby Jones, who played Dobby the House Elf in the Harry Potter series. Silk, says Jones, is in it for love rather than evil. “He’s someone who enjoys the art of pickpocketing because he loves wallets. There’s something very moving, in a way, about his passion for pickpocketing. He’s the classic example of the Hergé idea that someone may look like a terrible person, but not be one at all,” he explains.

Also figuring into the plot is Nestor, the loyal butler at the storied manse of Marlinspike Hall, played by character actor Enn Reitel. “Like so many butlers, he knows where all the skeletons are hidden, but also like all butlers, he has incredible loyalty to his master, which, at least for the moment, is Sakharine,” says Reitel (who also plays the merchant who sells Tintin a dangerous ship model).

Rounding out the story’s cast of criminals are a pair of thugs, Allan and Tom, played by Daniel Mays and Mackenzie Crook, and the wealthy merchant Ben Salaad, played by Moroccan-born actor Gad Elmaleh.

Another fixture from the Tintin books — the imperious, glass-shattering opera singer Bianca Castafiore — is played by Phantom of the Opera diva Kim Stengel. “As we developed the script, we weren’t deliberately trying to write her into the story,” explains Jackson. “It just happened that there was a role that was perfect for her, so she ended up in the movie in a way that is quite delightful.”

Other Tintin characters who make appearances in the film include Tintin’s landlady Mrs Finch (Sonja Fortag); Lt. Delacourt (Tony Curran); and the only American character in the film, Barnaby, a detective trying to warn Tintin of the danger he’s getting himself into, played by comic actor Joe Starr.

One common thread seemed to run throughout the international cast: a sheer love for the books and a passion to be part of the film. “We all have something in our childhood that touches us,” sums up Cary Elwes, who takes on the role of an attacking pilot. “For me, it was Tintin.”

THE FILM

To introduce audiences to the maximum breadth of Tintin and his various allies and enemies, the filmmakers decided to combine three favourite Tintin books — The Crab with the Golden Claws,

The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham’s Treasure — into a singular plot that would keep modern moviegoers exhilarated. The result, Spielberg says is “part-mystery, part-detective story, as well as a pure unapologetic adventure, all built around a tremendous story of friendship, loyalty and belief between Captain Haddock and Tintin.”

Spielberg was convinced right away that Jackson was the ideal partner. “Peter told me, ‘If you were here right now, you would see over my shoulder the entire series of Hergé’s books, and I would love to be a part of this,’” Spielberg recalls. In addition to serving as producer for the first film, Spielberg asked Jackson if he would direct the second film in the series. Jackson agreed.

“I was thrilled that Steven invited me onboard. Steven really is quite similar to the Tintin character. He’s young at heart. He’s very curious. He has a great love of adventure, and his sense of humour pretty much matches what Hergé brought to Tintin. It’s a perfect match,” says Peter Jackson

On tintin

“Tintin is an eager reporter who chases fragments of clues that suddenly blow up into these amazing, globe-trotting adventures. What makes him so intriguing is his relentless pursuit of the truth, although that always leads him down some treacherous paths” — Steven Spielberg

for all the far-flung places Tintin has travelled — from Peru to Tibet to the moon — the one place he has yet to venture is the modern movie screen. That changes with The Secret of the Unicorn, which not only brings the series to worldwide movie audiences for the first time but does so in an inventive new way that pushes the creative envelope of 21st century storytelling while staying true to Hergé’s inimitable and timeless visual style.

Who would you have cast as Tintin and Haddock? Tell t2@abp.in