Ron Perlman reveals the setting of Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio movie. The Academy Award-winning filmmaker's critical hits include his 2006 fantasy film, Pan's Labyrinth, and his 2017 Best Picture-winner, The Shape of Water, though some of his more commercially successful movies include Pacific Rim and Hellboy. His most recent film, Nightmare Alley, released in theaters on December 17 and stars Bradley Cooper as an ambitious carny who crosses paths with a corrupt psychiatrist, played by Cate Blanchett, who proves to be just as dangerous as he.
Back in 2008, del Toro announced he was developing a stop-motion animated movie based on Carlo Collodi’s Italian classic, Pinocchio. In the coming years, the director struggled to secure funding and the project was forced to change studios several times. It eventually landed at Netflix in 2018 and the streamer now plans to to release his Pinocchio movie in late 2022. Other than Perlman as Mangiafuoco, the film features the voices of Gregory Mann, Ewan McGregor, David Bradley, Tilda Swinton, Christoph Waltz, Cate Blanchett, Tim Blake Nelson, Finn Wolfhard, Burn Gorman and John Turturro.
Now, in a recent interview with Inverse promoting Nightmare Alley, which he has a small role in, Ron Perlman also discussed his involvement in Guillermo del Toro's upcoming Pinocchio adaptation and shared some information about the movie's setting. According to Perlman, it is "set in Mussolini's Italy." Read what he had to say below:
"Well, Guillermo's Pinocchio is set in Mussolini's Italy, which is a Fascist backdrop. The conceit of the film is that Pinocchio is the perfect soldier because he's not human. So he doesn't ever question orders. He doesn't have fears. He's invulnerable. He's all the things the perfect soldier needs to be."
Other than the cast list and the fact that it will be released on Netflix next year, not much else is known about del Toro's Pinocchio. Thanks to Perlman's recent comments, it's now apparent that the movie will be set in Italy prior to WWII, unlike Walt Disney's iconic animated version from 1940 which was set during the late 1800s, the same time Collodi’s famous fable was written. However, expect del Toro's version to be less kid-friendly, as it has been labeled as a "dark and twisted retelling."
Del Toro's film actually isn't the only adaptation of Pinocchio set to stream next year. Robert Zemeckis is helming a live-action retelling for Disney+ starring Tom Hanks, Cynthia Erivo, Luke Evans, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Keegan-Michael Key, Lorraine Bracco, and Benjamin Evan Ainsworth. It will be interesting to see which adaptation wins out in the end, as both boast star-studded casts and high-profile directors. However, for those looking for an anti-fascist Pinocchio set during the rise of Mussolini, del Toro is your guy.
Source: Inverse