Tintin is actually a young reporter created by Belgian cartoonist Herge. It's easy to see why Spielberg would want to direct this as his first animated feature. Like Indiana Jones, Tintin is thrust into a series of dangerous adventures in foreign lands, wherein he makes narrow escapes and encounters real-life people like Al Capone. What Tintin didn't run into was the NAACP and PETA, but more on that in a second. Thomas Sangster, from Love Actually and Doctor Who, will play Tintin in the series. Andy Serkis, a.k.a. Gollum and King Kong, will play loopy Captain Haddock. The tale will be adapted by Stephen Moffat from two Tintin books, The Secret of the Unicorn and its sequel Red Rackham's Treasure.

If the film's a success -- and with its pedigree, how could it not be? -- Spielberg and company will start plowing through Tintin books to get new stories. They might want to steer clear of Tintin in the Congo, though. That controversial little number features Tintin blowing up animals with dynamite and encountering Black people who, according to the Telegraph "look like monkeys and talk like imbeciles." It also, at least in its original incarnation, made several references to the area being a Belgian colony and pointed out the differences between refined Tintin and the restless natives he meets. According to Wikipedia, TinTin's author seemed to have never met a stereotype he didn't like, from alky Scotsmen to tomahawk-chopping Indians. Most of the old movie serials that inspired Spielberg and George Lucas to create Indy are just as guilty of this, so I shouldn't be surprised at this discovery.

To be clear, I'm not advocating the banning of anything, because I'm a troublemaker who thinks people should make up their own minds. My own offense at Tintin's Congo is tempered by a devilish desire to see them actually make this insensitive hot mess, if only so I can see a Wile E. Coyote T-shirt-wearing Pamela Anderson arm-in-arm with Reverend Al Sharpton protesting outside theaters showing it.