Guillermo Del Toro’s ‘Pinocchio’: Trailer, Cast, and Everything We Know So Far

The little wooden boy gets a darker reimagining.Pinocchio is a classic childhood story for many. Originally in written form, The Adventures of Pinocchio is an 1883 Italian novel by Carlo Collodi. Since its publication, the story has been adapted into many forms for stage and screen, most notably, Disney’s iconic 1940 animated musical version. Guillermo Del Toro, whose films are known for fusing elements of horror with fairy tales, announced in 2008 that he had a “darker” adaptation of Pinocchio in development. He called it his passion project, stating “no single character in history has had as deep of a personal connection to me as Pinocchio,” and that he’s wanted to make this movie for as long as he can remember.

Pinocchio will be Del Toro’s feature directorial debut in animation, joining his 11 other feature films like Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth, Crimson Peak, and Nightmare Alley. He released several pieces of character concept art in February 2012 with the designs for Pinocchio, Geppetto, The Talking Cricket, Mangiafuoco (the puppet master), and the Fox and the Cat. This movie is not to be confused with the upcoming Disney live-action remake, starring Benjamin Evan Ainsworth as the titular character, along with Tom Hanks, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Cynthia Erivo. That adaptation will be released on Disney+ on September 8th, 2022. Del Toro’s adaptation was originally supposed to be released in 2013 or 2014, but the project was delayed. In 2017, it was announced that Patrick McHale (Adventure Time) would be co-writing the screenplay with Del Toro. Because Del Toro insisted the movie had to be stop-motion, it drove the budget costs up, making it harder to attract studios to finance production.