He should be doing more with Netflix. He'd probably be able to get more of his many canned projects made if he worked with them.
Agree. Hopefully, he'll abble to make Pan's Labyrinth spin-off or some project related to Lovecraft's work. But I love new ideas in the same way. :)
The way Netflix burns through their money he should have no trouble getting a greenlight on Mountains of Madness from them.
Literally the only negative in all of this is that its a Netflix film so I won't be able to put a Blu-ray on my shelf next to all of my other GdT films.
This excites me so much. del Toro has wanted to make this movie for ages and I'm ecstatic that it is finally happening. One of my most anticipated upcoming releases for sure.
He is Directing Bradley Cooper right now in another movie.
David Bradley as Gepetto is... interesting. I mainly know him as Filch. :laugh:
Robbins also co-wrote At the Mountains of Madness with Del Toro.
Bradley was in The Strain, Trollhunters and Wizards so he has history with del Toro.
Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio Carves a New Path: An Exclusive First Look
"The virtue Pinocchio has is to disobey. At a time when everybody else behaves as a puppet—he doesn't."
Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio tells this truth about its otherworldly title character: he can be a little unsettling, or even scary, before you get to know him. In the Oscar-winning filmmaker's upcoming stop-motion animated movie from Netflix, even Geppetto gets the willies when he first encounters the cheerful wooden boy clamoring around his workshop. A hallmark of del Toro's storytelling, from Pan's Labyrinth to Hellboy to his best-picture-winning The Shape of Water, is that beings who are initially seen as freakish, or frightening or unnatural, are often even more humane and sympathetic than the seemingly normal people who fear or scorn them.
The director always brings a slight chill before warming the heart, so his take on the living puppet comes from a gothic direction. "I've always been very intrigued by the links between Pinocchio and Frankenstein," del Toro tells Vanity Fair for this exclusive first look. "They are both about a child that is thrown into the world. They are both created by a father who then expects them to figure out what's good, what's bad, the ethics, the morals, love, life, and essentials, on their own. I think that was, for me, childhood. You had to figure it out with your very limited experience."
Despite that monstrous inspiration, Del Toro's movie was crafted to be family friendly. He knows it will be challenging, but hopes his Pinocchio connects across generations and brings out a sense of compassion. "These are times that demand from kids a complexity that is tremendous. Far more daunting, I think, than when I was a child. Kids need answers and reassurances.... For me, this is for both children and adults that talk to each other. It tackles very deep ideas about what makes us human."
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His approach to this story is a significant departure from what audiences have seen previously in movies about the puppet who yearns to be a real boy. In this version, "real" is a given. "To me, it's essential to counter the idea that you have to change into a flesh-and-blood child to be a real human," del Toro says. "All you need to be human is to really behave like one, you know? I have never believed that transformation [should] be demanded to gain love."
Del Toro shares directing credit on Pinocchio with Mark Gustafson, who was the animation director on Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox. The use of actual stop-motion puppets makes the film unique among the many adaptations of Carlo Collodi's 1883 storybook. Their film will debut its first footage at the Annecy International Animation Festival in France this week, then make its global premiere on Netflix in December.
The movie's main challenge is that it's one of at least three Pinocchio films debuting just this year. Disney's animated feature from 1940 remains a definitive classic even 82 years after its release, and in September, Disney+ will release a faithful live-action remake directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Tom Hanks as Geppetto. Earlier this year, Lionsgate released the digitally animated Pinocchio: A True Story, which was so savagely mocked online for its rudimentary design and flat voicework that it sparked conspiracy theories that the low-budget title was being deliberately marketed as a hate-watch.
The formally titled Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio aims to stand apart. For one thing, the production quality of his film is self-evident in the ornate detail of the sets and textures of the characters. And he has reinterpreted Collodi's tale in a way that distances it from the formidable Disney adaptations. "I have been very vocal about my admiration and my great, great love for Disney all my life, but that is an impulse that actually makes me move away from that version," del Toro says. "I think it is a pinnacle of Disney animation. It's done in the most beautiful, hand-drawn 2D animation."
By contrast, he notes that his own film is "a story about a puppet, with puppets—trying to seek acting from the animators in a different medium completely. We couldn't be more different than any other version of Pinocchio in our spiritual or philosophical goals, or even the setting."
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Del Toro's Pinocchio takes place not in a fairy-tale world, but in Italy between World War I and World War II, during the rise of fascism and authoritarian rule in the country. The wooden boy happens to come to life "in an environment in which citizens behave with obedient, almost puppet-like faithfulness," del Toro says.
In Disney's tale, as with most versions of the story, Pinocchio's fortunes take a downward turn when he succumbs to his desires and vices and indulges in misbehavior. Del Toro wanted to shift perspective on that as well. "It's counter to the book, because the book is seeking the domestication of the child's spirit in a strange way," the director says. "It's a book full of great invention, but it's also in favor of obeying your parents and being 'a good boy' and all that. This [movie] is about finding yourself, and finding your way in the world—not just obeying the commandments that are given to you, but figuring out when they are okay or not."
"Many times the fable has seemed, to me, in favor of obedience and domestication of the soul," del Toro adds. "Blind obedience is not a virtue. The virtue Pinocchio has is to disobey. At a time when everybody else behaves as a puppet—he doesn't. Those are the interesting things, for me. I don't want to retell the same story. I want to tell it my way and in the way I understand the world."
Del Toro has wanted to bring his own version of Pinocchio to the screen for about 15 years. The look of his title character was devised by acclaimed illustrator Gris Grimly, who created a series of images for a 2002 edition of Collodi's story. "The basic design of Gris Grimly's, which I think was brilliant, was to make him look like wood that was never finished, you know?" del Toro says.
Pinocchio (voiced by newcomer Gregory Mann) is a silly, sunny personality, eager to learn about the world and meet the people who inhabit it. But his roots, quite literally, are in sadness. In del Toro's retelling, he is carved from a tree that grew over the grave of Geppetto's son, Carlo, whose life was cut agonizingly short years before. (In the shot at the top in which del Toro is peeking through the window, you can see the lost child's photo in a frame on the woodcarver's workbench.)
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The heartbroken Geppetto (voiced by David Bradley of Game of Thrones and the Harry Potter movies) is still too blinded by grief to realize that his wish has come true. "He begs for another chance at being a father, but he doesn't recognize that the essence of his own child comes back in the form of this indomitable boy," the filmmaker says. "The main conflict within Geppetto and Pinocchio is that Geppetto wanted Carlo, who was a very well-behaved, very docile kid, and he doesn't quite get Pinocchio, who is rowdy and wild and exuberant."
A creature who does understand Pinocchio's heart is Sebastian J. Cricket (voiced by Ewan McGregor), the eloquent purple insect who built a home in his trunk and continues to reside there when he comes to life. In the image below, you see not just the erudite insect, but also the tree still standing over the lost child's resting place. "That's the arrival of the cricket, who has been crisscrossing the world, and this is where he discovers the perfect home," del Toro says.
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Once the tree becomes a living puppet, Sebastian aspires to be a conscience for the boy (just like his alter ego in the Disney version, Jiminy Cricket) But in del Toro's adaptation he more or less...bugs the kid. "In the beginning of the story, the cricket is full of self-importance," the director says. "And towards the end, he's movingly humbled and he understands that it's not about teaching Pinocchio how to behave, but about himself learning how to behave."
Sebastian will need more than one lesson about getting out of the way—and he gets more than one lesson. Fortunately for him he is a survivor. "One of the things I liked in the book when I read it as a kid is that the cricket keeps getting killed over and over again and crushed and maimed," del Toro says. "In our story, the cricket gets smushed often, but it's a journey also for the cricket to find love and humility."
The cricket is one of the only other mystical beings in the story. "I didn't want magical creatures other than the wood spirit that gives him life, and Pinocchio himself," del Toro says. "I didn't want a talking fox and a talking cat and the magic of transforming him into a donkey. I wanted everything else to feel as close as we can to the real world."
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With that in mind, one of the story's main villains, Count Volpe (voiced by Christoph Waltz), is not an actual anthropomorphic fox, but a human whose wing-like sideburns flare up like a fox's ears. Del Toro describes him as "a grand aristocrat that has fallen into misfortune."
"The three main villains in the original story are the cat, the fox, and the puppeteer, and we wanted to fuse them into one," the director says. "This is a puppeteer that has regaled the courts of Europe, and now is traveling in a down and dirty little carnival. In Pinocchio, he finds the hope to be a king, again, you know? To recreate his grand, golden years."
He fashions an ironclad and lengthy contract, then recruits Pinocchio to join his act, performing alongside other marionettes who are controlled by Volpe's lead puppeteer—a monkey named Spazaturra, voiced by Cate Blanchett, worships Volpe, even though he is awful to her.
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In the image above, "that's Pinocchio very much enjoying the carnival, and loving every minute of it. He loves hot chocolate, like Carlo did. He loves sweets, like any other kid. And this scene is previous to his grand debut as the star of the carnival and its puppet theater. He is gorging himself and talking to the other puppets."
There is no Pleasure Island in this story. Instead of being transformed into a donkey after living too large, Pinocchio is targeted by the government officials who hear tell of the boy made of wood and believe he might have other applications. "He is recruited into the village military camp, because the fascist official in town thinks if this puppet cannot die, it would make the perfect soldier," del Toro says.
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The filmmaker's frequent collaborator Ron Perlman supplies the voice of this buttoned-up figure with an ominous armband. "This character is the podesta, or officer in the town, who basically controlled the town politically and socially at this time," del Toro says. "He also has a story with his own son, Candlewick, who is traditionally the sort of bully that troubles Pinocchio."
This Candlewick (voiced by Stranger Things' Finn Wolfhard) also breaks from the traditional narrative. "Our character starts as an antagonist, and ends up being a very good and loyal friend of Pinocchio. Their story is very moving to me."
Throughout del Toro's Pinocchio are numerous variations on father-son relationships. Initially, Geppetto cannot accept the wooden boy as his own, in part because the people of the town regard the creation as a freak or monster. "He's talking to Pinocchio about how absolutely he has destroyed his peaceful life," the director says.
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The old man has had his life destroyed before. In this shot, Carlo is still alive, and visits his father on one of his most important assignments: "Geppetto is a woodworker, so he carves plates, spoons, forks, shoes. If you need a door or a roof or a bench, he carves it. He is commissioned to carve the crucifix for the church, one of the most important icons for the town," del Toro says.
After losing his son, his life falls into disarray. But it's a mess he has gotten used to by the time Pinocchio arrives.
"In the beginning of the movie, he tells a little story to his child, Carlo, in which he says that lies are as evident as your nose, and the more you lie, the more it grows," del Toro says. "And Pinocchio quotes that idea to him, and Geppetto's like, 'That's right, how do you know that?'"
There are many ways to lie, however. In del Toro's Pinocchio, one of the worst is to be untrue to yourself.
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2022/06/guillermo-del-toro-pinocchio-first-look
Looks like it has some style going for it, that's always a plus in my book. And Pinocchio looks so cute !
... thumbnail looks creepy
Pffft, who needs this pretentious crap with a sense of style and passion from people involved when Disney already took care of everything ?
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