Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are giving the public a first view of their much anticipated collaboration, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn through British magazine Empire.

The iconic image of Tintin, voiced by Jamie Bell and his dog Snowy spotlighted and running is featured on the cover of the magazine. The new issue of Empire also contain stills from the film, with one showing Captain Haddock portrayed by Andy Serkis, who also played the creature Gollum in Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Another photo shows Haddock and Tintin signalling for help while adrift in the sea.

"With live action you're going to have actors pretending to be Captain Haddock and Tintin," Peter Jackson told Empire.

"You'd be casting people to look like them. 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."

The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn is a motion capture 3-D film based on a comic books series created by Georges "Hergé" Remi. The film is scheduled for release in late 2011, with the report from Empire saying it will be released on February.

It is directed by Steven Spielberg from a script based on three stories: The Crab with the Golden Claws, The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham's Treasure. Peter Jackson serves as producer for the film while his company Welta Digital provided computer animation for The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn.

According to reports, sequels are in the horizon, with Peter Jackson directing the second installment. Spielberg and Jackson plans to co-direct the third film.