TINTIN IN HOLLYWOOD

Variety reports that directors Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are teaming to direct and produce three back-to-back features based on Herge's comic hero Tintin in full digital 3-D using performance capture technology. Each of the filmmakers will direct one of the films, while the identity of the third has not yet been announced.

According to Spielberg, they wanted "Tintin's adventures to have the reality of a live-action film, and yet Peter and I felt that shooting them in a traditional live-action format would simply not honor the distinctive look of the characters and world that Herge created. Thus, "Herge's characters have been reborn as living beings, expressing emotion and a soul which goes far beyond anything we've seen to date with computer animated characters,"

Jackson's digital facility, WETA will stay true to Herge's original designs in bringing the cast of Tintin to life, but that the characters won't look cartoonish.

"Instead," Jackson said, "we're making them look photorealistic; the fibers of their clothing, the pores of their skin and each individual hair. They look exactly like real people --but real Herge people!"

Expect the creepy and unnecessary trilogy of the beloved characters to hit theaters sometime after Spielberg's Indiana Jones IV and Jackson's adaptation of The Lovely Bones.