Guillermo Del Toro’s Stop-Motion ‘Pinocchio’ Debuts First Trailer
Horror and sci-fi master Guillermo del Toro will try something new with his next project: Children’s animation. And a musical to boot!
For the last several years, del Toro has been working on a stop-motion adaptation of the classic fairy tale Pinocchio. Just about a month removed from del Toro’s last film, the decidedly not for children Nightmare Alley, this next project is getting closer to completion. Netflix announced today that Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio will premiere on the service by the end of this year. They made the announcement with an first teaser for the film, which features the voice of Ewan McGregor as Sebastian J. Cricket, del Toro’s version of Jiminy Cricket from Disney’s Pinocchio. (in the original story, it was simply an unnamed talking cricket, so Jiminy is an invention of Disney’s.)
Watch the teaser below:
The animation actually looks friendlier and less terrifying than I would have expected from del Toro. But again, this is Pinocchio we’re talking about. Besides McGregor, the cast includes David Bradley as Geppetto, Gregory Mann as Pinocchio. plus Finn Wolfhard, Cate Blanchett, John Turturro, Ron Perlman, Tim Blake Nelson, Christoph Waltz and Tilda Swinton.
Here’s the film’s official synopsis:
Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Guillermo del Toro reinvents Carlo Collodi's classic tale of the wooden marionette who is magically brought to life in order to mend the heart of a grieving woodcarver named Geppetto. This whimsical, stop-motion musical directed by Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson follows the mischievous and disobedient adventures of Pinocchio in his pursuit of a place in the world.
Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio will premiere in December of this year on Netflix.