After Freddy Frogface, Kirkegaard's Rubber Tarzan returns as Jelly T in 3D

by Jorn Rossing Jensen

01/06/2012 - Danish director Michael Hegner's 3D animated Jelly T [trailer] not only reached 75,000 admissions domestically for SF Film since its launch on May 16 - it has also become a hot item for Germany's Sola Media, which started international sales at Cannes. "So far we have covered app 30 countries," said Sola Media CEO Solveig Langeland, who signed contracts for, ao, Holland (Twin Film), Belgium (Je Kino), former Yugoslavia (MFC), Russia, CIS (Central Partnership), Middle East (MIP) and Latin America (Leda Film).

The €2.3 million Jelly T is the second film in the trilogy of animated kid pics from Danish beloved children's author Ole Lund Kirkegaard's books, which Danish producer Nina Crone, of Crone Film Produktion, launched last year with UK director Peter Dodd's Freddy Frogface and will be concluded with Otto Is a Rhinoceros in 2013.

The story of Ivan, a boy who is bullied at school but one day gets the chance to take revenge and live up to his father's expectations, was first adapted for the screen in 1981 by Danish director Søren Kragh-Jacobsen under its original title, Rubber Tarzan. But following a lawsuit - Tarzan is a registered trademark owned by Disney - the character has since been referred to as Rubber-tarzan, before becoming Jelly T in 2012.

Kirkegaard, who died in 1979, aged 38, always illustrated his own books, and as for the Freddy Frogface feature, his drawings for Rubber Tarzan have inspired the animation for Jelly T and director Hegner, who has previously signed such films as The Flight Before Christmas (Niko & The Way to the Stars [trailer]/2008) and A Fish Tale (2000).

Danish actors Thure Lindhardt, Nicolaj Kopernikus and Signe Egholm Olsen deliver the voices for the adventures of Ivan, which were scripted by Danish writer Michael W. Horsten (who has penned several episodes for DR-TV's series The Killing), and produced by Erik Wilstrup and Crone (with 30 titles to her credits, including Sunshine Barry & the Disco Worms [trailer] (2008).