Guillermo del Toro, whose new version of noir Nightmare Alley premiered last night, has given an update to Collider on how his musical stop-motion animated movie version of Pinocchio is coming along.
He mentioned that, like buses, it’s been almost five years since his Oscar-winner The Shape of Water and that he now has two films coming along close together. It sounds as though Pinocchio could be released on Netflix within less than a year of Nightmare Alley – in the last quarter of 2022.
del Toro also spoke of how moving he is finding the experience of making Pinocchio, calling it “as personal as it gets” and that he “sobs like a baby” every time he watches it. Stop-motion animation is a painstakingly slow process, but del Toro says it’s about 50% done and the other 50% is currently in storyboard form.
Ewan McGregor will be providing the voice for Jiminy Cricket and the voice cast also includes Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, Finn Wolfhard, Christoph Waltz, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, and Ron Perlman.
Guillermo del Toro said; “It’s a very very very personal movie for me. The flip-side for me [has] always been Pinocchio and Frankenstein. Because essentially, that’s the same story. The idea is of a Pinocchio that talks about things that I consider very deep – but it’s fun and it’s a musical at the same time! I find it really incredibly moving.”
He continued; “It’s unlike any version of the story you’ve ever seen. It’s completely unlike it. It subverts the moral underpinnings of the original fable, which is, in order to be a real boy you have to change. You’re going to become flesh and blood. This is about becoming a real boy by acting…acting like a real human, period.”
It certainly sounds intriguing, like most del Toro projects. Nightmare Alley will be in cinemas on December 17. A live-action version of Pinocchio is also set for release next year.