One of the best things about Guillermo del Toro as a director is that he likes to bring his own brand of filmmaking to all sorts of genres and movie types. His next shot will be his first children’s movie, an adaptation of Pinocchio for Netflix. The first trailer for the film, officially titled Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, dropped today, and it looks like a fantastic adaptation tinged with that touch of horror / darkness that the director brings to all his work.
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio is said to be a reinvention of the classic story, though it’s not quite clear how reinvented it is going to be as the trailer seems to contain mostly moments that we’ve already seen, like the giant whale and circus troupe. However, visually it is nothing short of striking, with a stop-motion style that fits perfectly with a world where a little wooden puppet becomes a real boy (spoiler?). It also looks like it’s going to pack quite the emotional punch, especially for the dads out there. The focus veers away from Pinocchio’s adventures and more towards his relationship with Geppetto, who has lost his real son and made Pinocchio out of the tree that grew by his son’s grave. Could we be looking at a new record for bawling in the first 10 minutes of a kid’s movie?
Joining del Toro in the directing chair is Mark Gustafson, who worked on The PJs and has directed a few other animated shorts. The cast for the film is stacked too. You can hear the unmistakable voice of Ewan McGregor as Cricket (no Jiminy) in the trailer. There’s also David Bradley as Geppetto, newcomer Gregory Mann as Pinocchio, Finn Wolfhard, Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett, John Turturro, Ron Perlman, Tim Blake Nelson, Burn Gorman, Academy Award winner Christoph Waltz, and Academy Award winner Tilda Swinton.
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio will land on Netflix sometime this December.
