After years of being trapped in different circles of development hell, co-director Guillermo del Toro’s long-awaited take on Pinocchio is finally happening, and the stop-motion feature’s first teaser trailer is here to introduce the world to the story’s minuscule moral center.
Set during Benito Mussolini’s fascist reign over Italy in the 1930s, del Toro’s Pinocchio once again tells the tale of a wooden puppet who suddenly comes to life, much to his woodcarver “father’s” surprise. Unlike some of the other Pinocchio tellings you may be familiar with, though, this film’s Pinocchio (Gregory Mann) quickly gets into the sorts of cruel mischief that put him at odds with Geppetto (David Bradley), who loves his son but can’t help but see that he isn’t exactly what one would call a “nice” child. Though this Pinocchio presumes you’re probably familiar with some parts of this fairytale as a whole, Sebastian J. Cricket (Ewan McGregor) makes clear in the teaser trailer that there’s more to be said, and he plans to be the one to say it.
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Short as the teaser is, it’s got just enough detail to give you a sense of how Pinocchio’s more enchanting, playful moments might feel and sound. But what’s still not quite clear is how the film will dance between its fairytale elements and the dark real-world history woven into the narrative. Pinocchio is co-directed by Mark Gustafson and written by del Toro and Patrick McHale. The film also stars David Bradley, Tilda Swinton, Christoph Waltz, Finn Wolfhard, Cate Blanchett, John Turturro, Ron Perlman, Tim Blake Nelson, and Burn Gorman.
Pinocchio is set to hit Netflix sometime this December.
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