One of Guillermo del Toro's passion projects is finally coming to life thanks to Netflix: a stop-motion animated musical of PINOCCHIO, but the director has cautioned that the film won't be quite as kid-friendly as the upcoming live-action remake coming from Disney. Guillermo del Toro spoke at the Marrakech Film Festival recently where he's set to give a master class, and talk soon turned to PINOCCHIO.
PINOCCHIO will be set in Italy during the 1930s, a period of time in which fascism was on the rise and Benito Mussolini was tightening his grip on the country. "It's not a Pinocchio for all the family," del Toro said, confirming that the darker adaptation will be a political fable. "Of course. Pinocchio during the rise of Mussolini, do the math. A puppet during the rise of fascism, yes, it is," the director said, adding that there are few fables without politics at their core. "Rarely can you get in productive discussions in real life right now, it's so tense. It's much easier for you to listen to me if I tell you 'Once upon a time… .'" It's obviously no surprise that Guillermo del Toro has an affinity for creatures given his filmography, and he's compared Pinocchio himself to Frankenstein's monster.
He's a creature that is created through unnatural means from a father that he then distances [himself] from, and has to learn about failure and pain and loneliness.
Although Guillermo del Toro has served as a producer on a variety of animated films, PINOCCHIO will be the first animated project which he'll be directing himself. The director added that he chose stop-motion animation as it's "more expressive" than working with actors.
When PINOCCHIO was first announced in October, Guillermo del Toro said the following in a statement:
No art form has influenced my life and my work more than animation and no single character in history has had as deep of a personal connection to me as Pinocchio. In our story, Pinocchio is an innocent soul with an uncaring father who gets lost in a world he cannot comprehend. He embarks on an extraordinary journey that leaves him with a deep understanding of his father and the real world. I’ve wanted to make this movie for as long as I can remember. After the incredible experience we have had on Trollhunters, I am grateful that the talented team at Netflix is giving me the opportunity of a lifetime to introduce audiences everywhere to my version of this strange puppet-turned-real-boy.
Guillermo del Toro had been shopping around his PINOCCHIO project for over a decade, saying that he was turned down by every studio in Hollywood until Netflix agreed to make it. It remains to be seen whether or not PINOCCHIO will receive any sort of theatrical release, but Guillermo del Toro says that he's "more scared of not making it" than having people forced to watch it on a smaller screen.