The attempt to give the Pinocchio story yet another cinematic twist has been confounding filmmakers for years. Specifically, Robert Downey Jr. and wife/producing partner Susan Downey, whose Team Downey company has been working on a version with Disney. Now there's another potential director in the mix, with word that Ron Howard is seriously considering directing.
This Pinocchio would focus a little less on the wooden boy who becomes a real, live lad, and more on his carpenter father, Geppetto. When Pinocchio goes missing, the worried dad must go looking for him.
At least, that's probably what the story is, aiming to give the tale a Maleficent-style shift. So many writers have come and gone in the years of development (including Jane Goldman, Bryan Fuller and even, briefly, Paul Thomas Anderson) that it's anyone's guess as to whether it's still the same idea.
And if Howard truly does take on the job, he'll naturally want to bring in his own writers to take a new crack at the script. We'll wait and see if this emerges from the depths of the rumour factory before postulating what Howard's version might look like. His latest, third Dan Brown adaptation Inferno, arrives on these shores on October 14.