Pinocchio Coming Alive With Gris Grimly And Guillermo Del Toro

Bloody-Disgusting reports that Guillermo del Toro is producing a stop-motion animated re-telling of Pinocchio, based on the 2002 Gris Grimly book. Grimly will serve as co-director with Adam Parrish King, who won a short filmmaking award at Sundance back in 2006. Grimly's version is said to be a darker and spookier take on the material. The story will find Pinocchio being magicked into a real child as in the original, but will have the titular character turn out to be a mischievous and devious little boy, playing mean tricks and being more or less evil until he eventually learns the value of being good. Del Toro does warn that the project is still very early on in its development, with the screenplay being worked on right now. The technical challenges of bringing the story to life would mean we wouldn't see this movie for at least a few more years.

The Jim Henson Company has been tapped to help make the film. Readers will remember them as the creators of The Muppets as well as the minds behind movies such as The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. Recently, they helped put on the Dracula musical seen in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and earlier this year we heard that Nick Stoller and Jason Segal have since been hired by Disney to write and direct the next Muppets movie.

The stop-motion puppeteering seen at the beginning of Hellboy II was pretty phenomenal, so I'm excited to see Del Toro return to the format, albeit in a producer's capacity. Still, the article does mention that Del Toro is planning a full-length stop-motion animated film of his own in the future, so I'll keep my fingers crossed that that project comes to fruition.