So, with a hefty budget to draw upon, and no little Kiwi expertise on hand, we can expect this one to look a bit special. However, Spielberg has whipped anticipation up to fever pitch by claiming Tintin’s motion-captured animation will be unlike anything we’ve seen before.

As he stressed to Variety back in 2007, the plan has always been to be as faithful to Hergé’s original creations as possible. “We want Tintin’s adventures to have the reality of a live-action film,” he said, “and yet Peter and I felt that shooting them in a traditional live-action format would simply not honour the distinctive look of the characters and world that Hergé created.”

Spielberg and Jackson will aim to achieve that effect by harnessing the same groundbreaking 3D technology used by James Cameron on Avatar, with actors kitted out in lycra mo-cap suits, and sporting head-mounted cameras designed to record every facial tic and twitch. Meanwhile, a handy monitor allowed Spielberg to see the actors appear in real-time as their computer-generated alter-egos, a trick that had the director gurgling with excitement.

“It made me more like a painter than ever before,” he told the LA Times. “I got a chance to do so many jobs that I don’t often do as a director. You get to paint with this device that puts you into a virtual world.”

So, fans of the books will be relieved to know that the Tintin up on screen will be the exact image of the character from the books, and yet will also be, according to Spielberg, “Jamie Bell’s complete physical and emotional performance.”

Ah yes, Jamie Bell. We were just coming on to him…