Pinocchio might be one of the more popular children’s tales thanks to Disney turning it into an animated film that has stood the test of time, but the original Italian fable was a darker tale aimed at children. Macabre film enthusiast and sometime director Guillermo del Toro wants to make an adaptation that sticks far closer to the original 1883 children’s book, and scar a few young psyches in the process.
For a long time though, it appeared as if del Toro’s vision for a stop-motion animated musical about the iconic puppet who wants to become a real boy would just never happen. The project has been stop-started many times, and with del Toro always taking on far bigger projects, it was just assumed this one would eventually fall by the wayside. Even more so now that Disney is making a live-action version of their original animated story, which is likely to feature a far bigger budget and naturally draw in more people to see it.
Del Toro’s project has not stopped though, and now that Netflix has stepped in to help produce the movie, it has picked up steam with the studio announcing quite an impressive cast for Del Toro’s epic tale. Del Toro and his co-director for this project, Mark Gustafson of Fantastic Mr Fox, will have Ewan McGregor voice The Cricket, David Bradley play Geppetto, Tilda Swinton as The Fairy with Turquoise Hair, Christoph Waltz as The Fox and The Cat, and Ron Perlman will be Mangiafuoco. Meanwhile Gregory Mann—a complete newcomer—is playing the young Pinocchio. Additionally, Cate Blanchett, Finn Wolfhard, Tim Blake Nelson, Burn Gorman, and John Turturro are also lending their voices to the project, in as yet unknown roles.
While del Toro will be trying to stick far closer to the original tale, he will be changing its time period slightly and setting it in the 1930s, during Italy’s fascist regime. Something which should give the tale even more bite and set itself even further apart from the sugary tones of Disney’s beloved tale. This stop-motion version of Pinocchio is set for release in 2021 via Netflix
Last Updated: August 21, 2020
