Ever since the project was first conceived, it was always thought that the team of Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson would take on directing duties for the series of films to be based on The Adventures Of Tintin. And now, with the first film just a ways off, it’s Jackson’s turn.

In an interview with THR, Jackson revealed that following production on his current film, The Hobbit, he will begin work on the next film in the Tintin franchise. The second Tintin installment will be entitled Prisoners Of the Sun, and while it may not even be greenlit yet, it appears to be moving right along.

Just a few days ago, filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky were on hand to film a new ending for their hit HBO documentary series, Paradise Lost. The moment was was when the West Memphis Three“”who had been imprisoned for almost two decades for the murders of three young boy scouts””were set free after DNA testing that didn’t exist when they were convicted proved that none of them were involved.

Some rather prestigious celebrity names were very supportive of the trio, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley, and their release, doing everything in their power to see justice done. They include Johnny Depp, Eddie Vedder, Henry Rollins, and Natalie Maines, as well as Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit director Peter Jackson and his partner, Fran Walsh.

Director Peter Jackson posted the third in his series of behind-the-scenes production videos from the set of upcoming film The Hobbit to his Facebook page.

This video is equal parts star cameos, interviews, raw footage, and whimsy, apparently starting at Pinewood Studios in the United Kingdom before transitioning to New Zealand. For stars, we get to see John Rhys-Davies visit his dwarven kin and kith on the set of Bag End. We get brief words from Ian McKellen, Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, and a nearly unrecognizable bearded and scruffy Second Unit Director Andy Serkis. For interviews, we get to hear from the various new dwarves in the cast about how they are coming together as a group, what it was like to visit the Bag End set, and how they learned to move like their characters. For raw footage, there is also some additional footage of the motion capture of Andy Serkis as Gollum, as well as the particular comment by Mr. Serkis that “it felt like kind of doing an impersonation of the character that I’d played.”

The The Adventures of Tintin panel began with something very special for the Comic-Con audience today in San Diego: a retrospective of Steven Spielberg‘s career, and the presentation of Comic-Con’s Inkpot lifetime achievement award to the respected filmmaker himself, which he receieved to a standing ovation.

Spielberg discussed how even before he knew about Tintin, his films had been compared to Herge’s work for years. When preparing to develop the film, he approached Weta to ask them to show him a test of Tintin’s dog Snowball, to see if CGI would be a proper medium. He then showed that presumed test, which featured producer Peter Jackson as Capt. Haddock, with a CGI Snowy behind him, performing tricks and getting drunk from Haddock’s whiskey.

Slowly but surely images of the dwarves from Peter Jackson’s Hobbit films are surfacing. First we saw Nori, Ori, and Dori, then came Oin and Gloin, the latter of whom is father of Gimli from the Lord Of The Rings trilogy.

Now, we get our first look at brothers Fili and Kili, nephews of Thorin Oakenshield, from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Check out the photo above.

The new photo shows Dean O’Gorman as Fili and Aidan Turner as Kili.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey hits theaters on December 14, 2012 with its second part, The Hobbit: There and Back Again, to be released a year later on December 13, 2013.