We’ve known for some time that Peter Jackson plans to step in to direct a sequel to Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, but despite the fact that the filmmaker is currently preoccupied with the remaining two instalments in his Hobbit trilogy – with The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug due this December, followed by The Hobbit: There and Back Again in December 2014 – Spielberg has now confirmed that plans are afoot to begin shooting the Tintin sequel this year, with a view to releasing the film in 2015.

“Peter Jackson is directing the next one, I’m producing,” Spielberg tells Times of India. “We have a script and we’re going to start performance capture probably at the end of this year. Don’t hold me to it, but we’re hoping the film will come out around Christmas-time in 2015. We know which books we’re making, we can’t share that now but we’re combining two books which were always intended to be combined by Herge.” When quizzed about the possibility of The Blue Lotus being one of the books, Spielberg stated that it would probably be adapted in the third Tintin film.

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn was released in 2011 and featured Jamie Bell (Man on a Ledge) as Tintin, Andy Serkis (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey) as Captain Haddock, Daniel Craig (Skyfall) as Red Rackham and Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz duo Nick Frost and Simon Pegg and Thomson and Thompson.