Hallo Spencer - Der Film (2024)

Jakob Sesam is the creator of the series “Hallo Spencer.” However, since the series began to lose popularity, his social standing has plummeted, and he earns a living performing with puppets at children’s birthday parties. He lives with all the puppets, the now completely dilapidated sets of the round village, and the entire film archive in the “Coconut Cave,” a former nightclub that actually belongs to his girlfriend Peggy. Since the building is now due to be demolished because of serious structural defects and sold to an investor for ten million euros, Peggy gives him until the end of the month to move out of the building with all his belongings. Sesam thinks about how he can prevent this and, together with Spencer, comes up with the idea of making a film that will earn him 20 million euros, allowing him to buy the property with the proceeds. When he proposes this idea to Peggy and even presents her with a finished script, she is initially receptive. But after he tells her that he needs ten million euros from her to finance the project up front, she refuses. He then visits his wealthy, art-loving friend Wolf Bosch, who also does not want to give him any money, but arranges video calls for him with three streaming services and an in-person meeting with Nord-Rundfunk (NRF), his former employer, in the hope of finding a way to get the production made. However, the talks with the three streaming services are unsuccessful. On the day the deadline expires, Peggy finally turns up at the door with an excavator. Sesam still wants to prevent the demolition and claims that he now has the ten million euros available, but needs until that evening. Peggy therefore backs away from her plan to demolish the building and wants to arrange an appointment with a notary right away. At the in-person meeting with NRF, Sesam meets Fred Forthmann, a former intern who is now NRF’s program director. He is completely taken with the idea and agrees to the ten-million-euro production budget. However, he wants Jakob Sesam to commit to financing 50% of the production costs himself—that is, five million euros. Sesam agrees, even though he has no idea how he will raise the money. Forthmann explains that the money must be in NRF’s account within five working days, or a hefty contractual penalty will be due. Meanwhile, Jette and Markus Wilde, an eccentric, wealthy couple who live in Berlin, are originally from the former East Germany, and hold stakes in various media companies, discover that they own the rights to the series “Hallo Spencer.” They immediately devise a plan to make money from it. Their employees come up with proposals for turning the series into a manga or 3D animation, but the couple rejects them. In the end, they decide to use the puppets again, so that audiences who have fond memories of the series will watch it once more. While Sesam tells his ex-wife Luise about the successful negotiations with NRF, Jette and Markus Wilde’s employees storm the “Coconut Cave” and forcibly take all the puppets to Berlin, to the Wildes’ company headquarters. Just beforehand, the couple joins by video call and tells Jakob Sesam, in Peggy’s presence, that they own the rights to the series and therefore all the puppets belong to them. The naive Sesam eventually admits to Peggy that he sold the rights to the series, but says that it was a long time ago. As he sits in complete despair on a bench outside the nightclub, a musician and the three Quietschbeus suddenly join him; they apparently were not abducted. They convince him not to give up. Sesam decides to set off on a rescue mission to Berlin. Meanwhile, Spencer and his friends have arrived at the Wildes’ home. The couple is disappointed, however, because all the puppets look as if they came from the 1980s. They tell their employees to give the puppets a makeover. Once this is done, they are still dissatisfied, so they decide to put all the puppets out on the street to be given away. Fortunately, Jakob Sesam finds the garbage bag and saves his beloved puppets. From the balcony, Markus and Jette Wilde call down to him that they would sell him the rights—for ten million euros. Jakob Sesam now calculates that the production costs, the reacquisition of the merchandising rights, and the contractual penalty have brought the total to 40 million euros. Back home, Sesam is even more desperate. He lies on the nightclub’s roof and gets drunk on a bottle of whisky. Suddenly, he gets the idea of calling the fairy “Galactica,” as the villagers do in the series, with a rhyming song, and asking her for advice. To his great joy, she really does appear. After greeting him warmly, she advises him to sell Luise’s ring. Luise, with whom he created the series and who—as the audience only learns over the course of the film—is already dead and has appeared to him as a hallucination throughout the story, has a ring worth at least 50 million euros. Galactica adds that the problem is not the money, but that Sesam finally has to learn to let go. Sesam follows her advice. In the end, the film is made. Everyone involved gathers for the festive premiere. Jakob Sesam thanks everyone involved and gives special thanks to his late ex-wife Luise, whose death is particularly mourned by the puppets. As a sign of recognition, an empty chair is placed in the audience.