What a time to be a fan of Guillermo del Toro in the UK. This Friday just gone, the director’s latest film Nightmare Alley finally hit cinemas – and if you haven’t already rushed out to see it, you really should. Not only that, but today brings the first proper look at the filmmaker’s next project – his long-awaited first animated feature, a new animated take on Pinocchio. The project was announced a few years back by Netflix, and since stop-motion is a famously lengthy process, we’re only just now getting a first glimpse at some footage. Check out the brief teaser here, narrated by Ewan McGregor as ‘Sebastian J. Cricket’, who lives in the heart of a certain wooden puppet boy.
It’s only about 30 seconds long, but already this looks enchanting – that textural, tangible look and feel, the fairytale quality that’s so inherent to del Toro’s storytelling, that sumptuous score… Plus, we learn that the official title for this one is Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, which should handily distinguish it from Robert Zemeckis’ live-action Pinocchio remake, also due this year on Disney+. And, as the teaser tells us, this might not be the story we think we know. Sebastian J. Cricket looks to play a different role to Disney’s Jiminy Cricket, who was much re-conceived from the role of the cricket in Carlo Collodi’s novel – who doesn't get a name, and is promptly squished by the puppet on the page. In fact, Disney’s animated version is pure nightmare fuel, and the book is even darker – so it’ll be fascinating to see where del Toro takes this one.
Most importantly, the teaser confirms that the film is due in December – a long wait, then, but sure to be a Christmas treat come the year’s end. The film is co-directed by Mark Gustafson, with a cast also including Finn Wolfhard, Cate Blanchett, John Turturro, Ron Perlman (of course), Tim Blake Nelson, Burn Gorman, Christoph Waltz, and Tilda Swinton. Plus, David Bradley is voicing Geppetto, and Gregory Mann is in the role of Pinocchio himself. If we said we weren’t ridiculously excited about this one, our noses would be growing right now…