It feels like only yesterday we got a big, lavish update of the classic children’s tale Pinocchio. That’s because it was only two months ago — when Robert Zemeckis’ Pinocchio premiered on Disney+. That version hewed very closely to the 1940 animated version from Walt Disney.
No one is going to mistake this latest Pinocchio with Disney’s. That’s because it’s by Guillermo del Toro, who has a very different inkling of how to tell this sort of story than a Disney or a Zemeckis. Plus it is a stop-motion animated movie, co-directed by Mark Gustafson, and it hews more closely to the original Pinocchio story, which is a whole lot darker than the one that Disney told. You’ll get a taste of that in the film’s new trailer, which you can watch below:
That’s Gregory Mann as the voice of Pinocchio, Ewan McGregor as the voice of the cricket (decidedly not Jiminy), Christoph Waltz as Count Volpe, Tilda Swinton as the magical fairy who brings Pinocchio to life, and David Bradley as Geppetto, Pinocchio’s father who first creates the wooden puppet.
Just the design of Pinocchio seems so different from all the previous movie versions. This isn’t some cutesy tyke with a couple of features that make him look a bit like a puppet; this is a hunk of wood that’s somehow been brought to life. Here is the film’s official synopsis:
Academy Award-winning director Guillermo del Toro and award winning, stop-motion legend Mark Gustafson reimagine the classic Carlo Collodi tale of the fabled wooden boy with a whimsical tour de force that finds Pinocchio on an enchanted adventure that transcends worlds and reveals the life-giving power of love.
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio debuts on Netflix on December 9.
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