The world doesn’t need another Pinocchio movie… unless it’s a Pinocchio movie directed by Guillermo del Toro. The Oscar-winning filmmaker, along with co-director Mark Gustafson, takes the familiar story of a wooden marionette who becomes a real boy and reinterprets it with stop-motion animation. On Monday, Netflix revealed the first footage from the film, which shows Jiminy Cricket, I mean, Sebastian J. Cricket (voiced by Ewan McGregor) introducing a “story [that] you may think you know, but you don’t.”
“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,” del Toro said when the project was announced. “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.”
Here’s the official plot summary:
Academy Award-winning filmmaker Guillermo del Toro reimagines the classic Italian tale of PINOCCHIO in a stop-motion musical adventure. Follow the mischievous adventures of Pinocchio in his pursuit of a place in the world.
The rest of the voice cast includes David Bradley, Tilda Swinton, Christoph Waltz, Finn Wolfhard, Cate Blanchett, John Turturro, Ron Perlman, Tim Blake Nelson, and Gregory Mann as Pinocchio. Pinocchio comes out in December 2022.