By [ad_1]
Fresh off the release of his new film Nightmare Alley, director Guillermo del Toro opens up about his upcoming adaptation of Pinocchio.
Guillermo del Toro recently opened up about his upcoming stop-motion musical adaptation of Pinocchio for Netflix.
Del Toro revealed his upcoming adaptation of the iconic story is set during the rise of Mussolini in fascist Italy in a new interview with Rotten Tomatoes. The Nightmare Alley director also discussed the parallels between his two newest projects, explaining, “Obviously, Pinocchio has a big section in a carnival. And there’s strange little echoes between the two, and Pinocchio deals with a different thematic. Pinocchio is about what makes a human a human, and what makes a human a puppet or a puppet a human.”
Del Toro has been working for years to get his Pinocchio adaptation off the ground. The film has been in development since 2008 with Gris Grimly and Mark Gustafson originally attached to direct, though del Toro took over directional duties in 2o12. In 2013, Grimly tweeted that the project had been put on hold after the box-office failure of Tim Burton’s stop-motion animated film Frankenweenie, explaining, “Short to the point update on Pinocchio for those inquiring: It appears that this is not the right time for such a superior-adventurous flick.”
While Del Toro continued to pursue the project, it stalled again in 2017 due to a lack of funding. “[Pinocchio] is not happening,” the director said during promo for The Shape of Water. “…The idea was to do Pinocchio during the ascension of fascism in Italy, with Mussolini. It was a good time to discuss the idea of being a puppet or being a human, but you know, it’s not in progress.”
Fortunately, Pinocchio got another chance at life when Netflix acquired the film in 2018. Over the past several years, del Toro has worked closely with Netflix, creating the Tales of Arcadia trilogy which includes Trollhunters, 3Below, and Wizards. Fans can expect many more collaborations between del Toro and the streaming giant after the filmmaker signed a multi-year agreement in 2020 to write, produce and direct film and television projects for Netflix.
Del Toro’s Pinocchio has been in production since the fall of 2019 and features newcomer Gregory Mann as the voice of Pinocchio, alongside Ewan McGregor as Cricket and Ron Perlman as the villainous Mangiafuoco. Other actors lending their voices to the film include Tilda Swinton, Christoph Waltz, Cate Blanchett, Tim Blake Nelson, Finn Wolfhard and John Turturro.
Released in December 2021 to generally favorable reviews, Nightmare Alley has been described as del Toro’s most grounded work to date. An adaptation of a 1946 novel of the same name, the neo-noir psychological thriller follows a down-on-his-luck man (Bradley Cooper) who joins a traveling carnival. After endearing himself to the carnival’s mentalist and clairvoyant, the man sets out to make his own fortune by swindling the New York elite. The film also stars Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, Ron Perlman and Richard Jenkins.
Del Toro’s Pinocchio, not to be confused with Robert Zemeckis’ upcoming live-action Pinocchio, is expected to premiere on Netflix in the last quarter of 2022.
Source: Twitter
About The Author
[ad_2]
