More than a year ago, movie-making powerhouse Guillermo Del Toro announced that he would be producing an adaptation of Pinocchio, to be co-directed by illustrator Gris Grimly and Mark Gustafson of Fantastic Mr. Fox fame. A darker, modern version of Pinocchio sounds like a Del Toro dream, and unsurprisingly, he’s replaced Grimly with himself to co-direct.
The 3D stop motion project is set to start filming in the summer of 2013 and will be based on Grimly’s 2002 book of the story, not the Disney classic. In Grimly’s version, some of the legendary aspects are different, and the overall tone is much more ominous. Concerning the book, Del Toro told Deadline that:
…the Blue Fairy is really a dead girl’s spirit. Pinocchio has strange moments of lucid dreaming bordering on hallucinations, with black rabbits. The sperm whale that swallows Pinocchio was actually a giant dogfish, which allows for more classical scale and design. The many mishaps Pinocchio goes through include several near-death close calls, a lot more harrowing moments. The key with this is not making any of it feel gratuitous, because the story is integrated with moments of comedy and beauty. He’s one of the great characters, whose purity and innocence allows him to survive in this bleak landscape of robbers and thugs, emerging from the darkness with his soul intact.
While it would’ve been cool to see Grimly himself direct, I’m sure he’ll still have some involvement in the film, and you can’t really go too wrong putting a dark fairytale in the hands of Guillermo Del Toro. Right?
What do you think? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
