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Telescreen, a leading Dutch Brand Management and Media company specialised in the production, distribution and licensing of kids & family entertainment properties and part of the German m4e Group, has aqcuired the exclusive worldwide IP-rights of PINKELTJE - all related characters and stories - for the adaptation into movies, television, home entertainment, merchandising, internet, mobile phone, audio, book publishing rights (excluding the original books, as owned by copyright holder Unieboek Publishers, The Netherlands), and more. The deal was made between Telescreen and the shareholders of the former rights holder Déjà Vu BV. Telescreen acquired 100% of the shares. PINKELTJE is a fictional character in the size of a human little finger, who has a white beard, wears a blue pointy hat, blue pants and a red shirt. He appeared in 29 books by award winning Dutch author Dick Laan (1894-1973) and in one movie based on a special script. The Pinkeltje Movie was successfully released in 1978. In his home market, The Netherlands, PINKELTJE enjoys a brand awareness of over 99% and has always been considered as a true phenomenon in the life of every child. Since the first publication in 1939, more than 4,5 million copies of the PINKELTJE books have been sold worldwide and the character is admired beyond the Dutch borders. PINKELTJE is known as ‘Pünkelchen’ in Germany, ‘Petitou’ in France, ‘Fingerling’ in the UK, ‘Prik’ in Denmark, ‘Knøtt’ in Norway, ‘Vickevire’ in Sweden, ‘Vikke Vakkaran’ in Finland, ‘Trítils’ in Iceland and ‘Pequenu’ in Portugal. PINKELTJE is one of its kind; he can talk to all animals, is adventurous, is always ready to lend a hand, travels a lot, solves mysteries and often ends up in a situation where he might be discovered by humans, his biggest threat.Telescreen is currently working on the worldwide brand exploitation programme for PINKELTJE, with Benelux, Germany and Scandinavia being the key markets. Sjoerd Raemakers and Theo van der Schaaf, managing directors at Telescreen, commented: “We are very pleased to add PINKELTJE to our portfolio of rights, as we believe that the character has the power to become an international icon and brand with huge potential. We aim to develop a wide span of audiovisual media products in addition to beautiful new merchandsing collections”. Telescreen’s plans include the development of an adventurous family entertainment feature film starring PINKELTJE, combining live action and animation in about 75 minutes. “At the moment, pre-development of the feature film is in motion”, says Van der Schaaf. “Our production team is actively working on the treatment, synopsis and script, studio selection, character and background design and much more; all for an international release”. |
