Further evidence of what the success of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland has wrought: Warner Bros. is throwing a live-action film version of the Pinocchio story into active development, with Bryan Fuller hired to write the script.
While he originated in Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinocchio back in 1883, the wooden puppet who dreams of becoming a real boy has been adapted numerous times through the years, still most famously in 1940 by Disney as the first film version. You might also recall that** Life is Beautiful**’s Roberto Benigni took a crack in 2002 to… er.. lesser results.
The puppet’s tale has also become something of a passion project for Francis Ford Coppola, who actually tried setting something up at Warners in the early ‘90s, and ended up suing the studio when it was shoved into turnaround and he was stopped from taking it to Sony.
There’s no word yet on exactly Fuller’s take will be, though given this is the man behind TV shows such as Wonderfalls and Pushing Daisies, we’re going to expect some whimsy and plenty of heart. Citing Burton’s Alice as direct inspiration, he tells Variety, “I think we've found a fresh approach that's going to be very entertaining." Whatever the approach, we’re fairly certain it’ll be in 3D.