It’s been a few months since the barrage of casting news came down from Mr. Popper’s Penguins. First Ben Stiller bailed, Jim Carrey was added, Carla Gugino hopped on, Ophelia Lovibond and Clark Gregg joined up, and a few more cast members came on all within about two weeks. But since then, nothing.

Well, rest assured that what will undoubtedly be one of the cutest movies of 2011 is well underway in New York and Splash has the first spy pics from the Central Park set. The pics show off star Jim Carrey kicking back with some of his titular penguins. Whether or not those particular penguins are real, robots, or just stand-in dummies is hard to tell, but either way they’re going to be fun to watch on screen.

As Mr. Popper, Carrey inherits six penguins that he must take care of, but in doing so he begins to lose his ultra-businessy nature, replaced by love for his new pets. The film comes out on August 12 of next year, so scope out these pics for now and expect a few official ones soon.