The first teaser trailer for Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio reveals Ewan McGregor's Cricket. McGregor joins a cast that includes Finn Wolfhard, Cate Blanchett, David Bradley, Ron Perlman, Tilda Swinton, Christoph Waltz, Tim Blake Nelson, and John Turturro. Gregory Mann serves as the voice of Pinocchio in the first stop-motion animated version of the classic tale.
Del Toro has been developing the stop-motion feature since as far back as 2008, which is based on Carlo Collodi’s Italian classic, The Adventures of Pinocchio. The film is said to be set in Mussolini's Italy, featuring Pinocchio's wooden boy as the "perfect soldier," according to actor Ron Perlman, who voices Mangiafuoco in the film. Perlman said recently that Pinocchio "doesn't ever question orders. He doesn't have fears. He's invulnerable. He's all the things the perfect soldier needs to be." This is a decidedly new take on the classic character and the story altogether, but one that will no doubt have del Toro's signature style.
The new film is said to more closely follow the original book, rather than the 1941 Disney adaptation, which took its own creative liberties. Now, audiences have their first look at del Toro's Pinocchio, as Netflix has released the first-look teaser trailer for the film. The trailer features McGregor's "Sebastian J. Cricket" who says that "it's a story you may think you know, but you don't," giving further evidence that Del Toro's new take will be something more akin to the original book than just an adaptation of the classic animated film. Take a look at the trailer below:
Del Toro recently released Nightmare Alley starring Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchett, while McGregor will reprise his Star Wars role in the Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi later this year. The actor has multiple other projects lined up, including the WWII film The Cow from director Marc Forster and a biopic about British mountain climber, George Mallory in Doug Liman's Everest. In addition to del Toro's Pinocchio, another version is also in the works from director Robert Zemeckis, which is said to be a live-action hybrid, starring Tom Hanks, Luke Evans, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Keegan-Michael Key.
With two warring Pinocchio adaptations set drop in 2022, it will be interesting to see which one fares better with audiences and critics. Del Toro's version is sure to be a darker tale, although the trailer doesn't suggest anything too macabre, despite Perlman's "perfect soldier" comments. Still, there's plenty of room for multiple adaptations and both del Toro and Zemeckis are amazing filmmakers, so it's a win-win for audiences. Whether one will be darker than the other is up for grabs, but certainly the expectation would be for del Toro's version to have that edge. All will be revealed when Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio releases in December 2022.
Source: Netflix