Telescreen Takes Fingerling Character

CANNES: Telescreen has scooped up the worldwide all media rights for the Dutch book-publishing character Fingerling (Pinkeltje), including related characters and stories, for adaptation into movies, home entertainment and merchandising, among other platforms.

Further areas for exploitation include Internet, mobile phone, audio and book publishing rights, excluding the original books, which are owned by copyright holder Unieboek Publishers. Fingerling is a fictional character the size of a human little finger. He appeared in 29 books by award winning Dutch author Dick Laan and in one movie based on a special script. For Telescreen, Benelux, Germany and Scandinavia will be the key markets for the property.

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 a family entertainment feature film starring Pinkeltje , combining life action and animation. “At the moment, pre-development of the feature film is in motion,” said 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.”