The The Adventures of Tintin panel began with something very special for the Comic-Con audience today in San Diego: a retrospective of Steven Spielberg‘s career, and the presentation of Comic-Con’s Inkpot lifetime achievement award to the respected filmmaker himself, which he receieved to a standing ovation.

Spielberg discussed how even before he knew about Tintin, his films had been compared to Herge’s work for years. When preparing to develop the film, he approached Weta to ask them to show him a test of Tintin’s dog Snowball, to see if CGI would be a proper medium. He then showed that presumed test, which featured producer Peter Jackson as Capt. Haddock, with a CGI Snowy behind him, performing tricks and getting drunk from Haddock’s whiskey.

Recently it was announced that Simon Pegg and Nick Frost had officially joined the cast as Thompson & Thomson in Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson‘s proposed Tintin trilogy of movies, the first of which is now officially titled The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn.

Now comes word of two more castings, Jamie Bell and Daniel Craig. Bell has been cast in the lead role of Tintin; he is best known for his work in Billy Elliot and was recently in Jumper. He also worked on Peter Jackson’s King Kong, so that probably helped out a bit. Daniel Craig is best known as the latest and greatest James Bond and his character in Tintin will be Red Rackham.