Think Belgium, if you're the average American, and what comes to mind? Chocolate, of course. Maybe Brussels sprouts or lace. Or Hercule Poirot or Jean Claude van Damme.

Now a new name may soon be added to this short list: Tintin, intrepid boy reporter. Hot on the heels of the French box-office success of his Gallic neighbor, Asterix the Gaul, Europe's last great comic-strip hero yet to be exploited by the movie business may soon be coming to theaters.

Tintin and his faithful terrier Snowy -- the creation of Belgian illustrator Georges Remi, alias Herge -- first appeared in the children's section of Le Petit Vingtieme newspaper 70 years ago. Since then, 22 comic-book albums have sold more than 200 million copies worldwide, and have been translated into more than 50 languages.

Even though Tintin is Belgian, the French have collectively adopted him as one of their own. Four of 10 households have at least one Tintin book, the French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche claimed recently.

Such is the popularity of Tintin in Europe that French intellectuals write serious critiques about him, and his cult following in Britain resulted in the 1980s hair band named for his identical, bowler-hatted detective friends: the Thompson Twins.

Rooted in a quaint vision of colonial-era Europe with only his wits, his fists and his friends to help him out of scrapes, Tintin has not been much competition for America's home-grown superheroes like Superman, Batman and Spider-Man.

But Herge's publisher, Casterman, still sells more than 2 million Tintin books a year. And Canal Plus and France's Ellipse Studios have rights to 39 half-hour animated TV episodes, which follow up on a series of TV cartoons that hooked many Tintin fans in the 1960s. There are also 10 official Tintin shops worldwide profitably selling licensed merchandise.

Herge died in March 1983, but Nick Rodwell, the president of the Herge Foundation, has been in talks with at least four Anglo-American groups of producers and directors for the last year.

"We would like to make a decision this year, but it has to be the right decision," says Rodwell. "We don't want to do a 'one-off' film," he adds, meaning he has hopes for a franchise-type film a la James Bond and Batman. Whether the film would be live-action or animated is still optional.

The foundation gets at least one serious proposal for a film every month. Two years ago, one British director tried to cast Leonardo DiCaprio as Tintin and Sean Connery as his blustering, brawny ally. In the wake of "Titanic," though, Rodwell thinks DiCaprio might be too big for Tintin.

And Rodwell has other conditions. He insists that any film will have to be faithfully based on Herge's own story lines, meaning no enhanced pecs or glitzy romantic notions will be grafted onto Tintin's simple stories.

"But that's one of the big problems," he admits, "because there's no love affair or beautiful women in them."

Pub Date: 03/14/99