Empire Magazine’s December 2010 issue is giving us our first look at Stephen Spielberg and Peter Jackson’s collaborative effort, ‘The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn,’ which is due in theaters in late 2011. The outrageously popular ‘Tintin’ series by Hergé is being adapated by the duo into a feature-length motion-captured 3D flick.

In case you’re not familiar with the inspiration for the film, ‘The Adventures of Tintin’ series is one of the most popular European comics of the 20th century, with translations published in more than 50 languages and more than 200 million copies of the books sold to date. Created by Belgian artist Georges Rémi, who wrote under the pen name of Hergé, the series follows the adventures of Tintin, a young Belgian reporter and his fox terrier Snowy. The duo are involved in many swashbuckling adventures with elements of fantasy, mysteries, political thrillers, and even science fiction.

Jackson commented on the transition to CGI and what that might look like for fans of the popular comic. ”It’s not really going to feel like the Tintin Hergé drew. It’s going to be somewhat different. With CGI we can bring Hergé’s world to life, keep the stylised caricatured faces, keep everything looking like Hergé’s artwork, but make it photo-real.”

Be sure to hit the jump for some more insightful quotes from the creators as well as a couple of amazing production stills from the flick.

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Regardless of any fan’s personal feelings about the project, it seems Fox is going ahead with its Plant of the Apes prequel film. In fact, today it was announced that Spider-Man’s James Franco has been cast as the lead in the film, now entitled Rise of the Apes.

As we mentioned previously, Rupert Wyatt is handling the directing duties of a script by Amanda Silver & Rick Jaffa. The story of Rise of the Apes concerns a scientist (Franco) who has been working on a cure for Alzheimer’s which is being tested on apes. The main test ape named Caesar starts to evolve rapidly due to the drug, and the scientist takes him home to live with him to protect him from cruel doctors.

Of course, as Caesar evolves he begins to realize that captivity isn’t for him and instead, he will rise up to lead his fellow apes to freedom. This story will show the modern day events that eventually lead to the apes dominating the human race as seen in the classic original Planet of the Apes films.

It will feature cutting edge ape effects by WETA Digital and will, for the first, time, have apes in it that are completely computer generated instead of being portrayed by actors in make-up. Could be cool, especially if there ends up being a bunch of great ape vs. man conflict.

Rise of the Apes will shoot this summer in British Columbia for a projected release on June 24, 2011.