DreamWorks Animation plans Good Luck Trolls movie

LOS ANGELES  - The Good Luck Trolls, with their frizzy, pastel-colored hair, are coming to the big screen via DreamWorks Animation.

The company behind the "Shrek" franchise said Tuesday it has pacted with Denmark's Dam Things, which controls the toy line, to develop an animated feature. Siblings Adam Wilson and Melanie Wilson LaBracio will write the screenplay.

The troll doll was created in 1959 by Danish fisherman and woodcutter Thomas Dam, when he carved a doll based on Scandinavian trolls for his daughter Lajla. The toy line gained popularity in Europe and the U.S. during the early '60s, becoming a fad embraced by kids and the counter-culture.

Because Dam Things, the Scandinavian company that produced the toys, lost control of its copyright after failing to comply with U.S. laws, imitators flooded the market in the '70s and '80s. However, as a result of a 1994 Congressional law that restored copyright protection to a number of foreign works, the Dam family regained authority.

In 2005, DIC Entertainment produced the animated series "Trollz," with an accompanying doll line aimed at girls, but the modernized version didn't have the same success as the classic versions.

In striking the deal with DreamWorks Animation, Niels Dam, the dollmaker's son who now owns the family business, said, "My father would have been very happy to know that his Troll has found its dream partner in DreamWorks Animation."