Blockbuster filmmakers Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are teaming to launch an animated film franchise based on the classic Belgian comic book series The Adventures of Tintin, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The trade cites sources who say the directors will take turns helming individual installments, employing motion-capture technology to create the animation.

Created by Georges Remi, working under the pen name Herg’, Tintin frist appeared in a Belgian newspaper in 1929. The adventures of the young, traveling reporter and his dog, Snowy, have since been published in 50 languages and more than 200 million copies of the books have sold over the past 70 years. The property remain popular in Europe and obviously has its share of influential fans in Hollywood. Spielberg optioned the rights in the early 1980s, just prior to Remi’s death.

Two live-action Tintin films and three animated features were made in the ’50s and ’60s, and a pair of television series adapted the comic-strip stories with animation, but the property has never been handled with a significant budget and top talent involved. It’s not known whether the film will come through the DreamWorks Animation pipeline, which is already booked solid for the next several years, or produced elsewhere.

The Tintin adventure saga could be animation’s answer to the Indiana Jones series, which brought the dream team of Spielberg and George Lucas together. Jackson and Spielberg recently began a working relationship when DreamWorks picked up the Lord of the Rings director’s latest feature, Lovely Bones. Based on the book by Alice Sebold, the film has a murdered 14-year-old girl telling her story from heaven as the incident affects her family and friends.