An adventurous and wise little cricket, which speaks with the lyrical voice of Ewan Mcgregor, narrates the opening of Netflix’s new teaser trailer for its long-awaited stop motion rendition of Pinocchio. “I want to tell you a story,” says the cricket. “You may think you know the story but you don’t”. Indeed, this darker re-imagination, inspired by Gris Grimly’s 2002 illustrations of the tale, is Pinocchio like you’ve never seen it before. For starters, it’s got an all star cast with David Bradley as Geppetto, Ewan Mcgregor as Cricket, Tilda Swinton as the Blue Fairy along with Cate Blanchett, Finn Wolfhard, Daniel Radcliffe and Tom Waits, to name just a few. It’s directed by Guillermo del Toro, creator of the strange and rather frightening Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) and The Shape of Water (2017), and Mark Gustafson, the animation director of Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. The trailer, which dropped 27 July, reveals a first glimpse at what this talented duo have come up with and, we can’t lie, we’re hooked.
By all accounts, del Toro’s stop motion promises to highlight the darker elements of Carlo Collodi’s original 1883 tale. Re-imagined countless times in the couple of centuries since it was written, Disney’s 1940 animation is of course the jolliest and most famous. Although, it has to be said, the original Disney film has its own fair share of sinister moments – Pinocchio being caged up by the villainous Stromboli, his innocence getting corrupted on Pleasure Island and the terrifying curse which turns little boys into donkeys which are sold into labour. In del Toro’s version, there will be no Pleasure Island or “Land of Toys” as it is called in Collodi’s story. In fact, del Toro does away with many fantastical elements of the original tale, replacing it with his own, more sombre setting – a 1930s interwar Italy during the rise of fascism.
Interestingly, the release of del Toro’s film later this year coincides almost exactly with Disney’s own remake – a live-action film starring Tom Hanks as Geppetto. The Disney version is set to be released in September, just a couple of months before del Toro’s. So, how will Toro distinguish his version from the filmmakers who originally brought Pinocchio to cinema?