Yep, that’s right, we’ll still have to wait over a year to see the completed film. That’s because whilst the nuts and bolts of the film are in place (ie the motion-captured performances), WETA have still got plenty of work to do whipping up the CGI world the characters will inhabit.

“Tintin is great,” Jackson told the BBC last year. “It’s made. The movie is cut together and now (we) are turning it into a fully-rendered film… So the movie, to some degree, exists in a very rough state.” Sounds like Jackson will have to earn his corn on the production side of things then, with Spielberg taking his turn behind an iChat monitor to keep an eye on things.

Meanwhile, Jackson has a few ideas in mind for where he wants to take the second film in the series, although when exactly he will find time to do that could depend on what happens with The Hobbit.

“I’m partial to The Seven Crystal Balls (and) Prisoners of the Sun was always one of my favourites,” Jackson told MTV. “I’m keeping my options open. We haven’t nailed it down just yet. I’m going to reread all the Tintin books again.”

One storyline he has rejected however, is Tintin’s adventure into space. “No moon (landing) for the second one," says Jackson, "But I think the moon one (s) would be great to do as a third or fourth film. I think we should stay on Earth for the second one. We don’t start writing that script until next year when we’re done with the Hobbit script, so I’ve got a little bit of time to change my mind.”

A slow-burning project all round then, but that’s generally how Jackson likes to work. And if another year of anticipation means we end up with an adventure saga of the quality of LOTR, then it will definitely have been worth the wait.