Academy Award winning filmmaker Guillermo del Toro is making his animated feature film directorial debut at Netflix with his lifelong passion project, Pinocchio, which he will write and produce as a stop motion musical.
Del Toro has set his retelling of the classic tale of Pinocchio in Italy during the 1930s. This marks an expansion of Netflix’s existing relationship with Guillermo del Toro, who created their Emmy award-winning television series DreamWorks’ Trollhunters, the first installment of the DreamWorks’ Tales of Arcadia trilogy. The next chapter, 3Below, is set to debut on December 21, 2018, followed by Wizards in 2019.
The cast of Academy Award® winner Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming stop-motion animated musical feature Pinocchio.
Newcomer Gregory Mann will star as Pinocchio with Ewan McGregor as Cricket and David Bradley (H arry Potter franchise, Game of Thrones ) as Geppetto. Other cast includes Academy Award® winner Tilda Swinton, Academy Award® winner Christoph Waltz, Finn Wolfhard ( Stranger Things), Academy Award® winner Cate Blanchett, John Turturro ( The Batman ), Golden Globe winner Ron Perlman (N ightmare Alley ), Tim Blake Nelson (W atchmen ), Burn Gorman ( Enola Holmes) .
Pinocchio is a production of Guillermo del Toro, The Jim Henson Company (The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance), and ShadowMachine (Bojack Horseman, The Shivering Truth), which will house the stop-motion animation production. Alongside del Toro, Lisa Henson, ShadowMachine’s Alex Bulkley, Corey Campodonico, and Gary Ungar of Exile Entertainment will produce. Blanca Lista will co-produce. Also alongside del Toro, Patrick McHale (Over The Garden Wall, Adventure Time) will co-write the script, Mark Gustafson (Fantastic Mr. Fox) will co-direct, and Guy Davis will serve as co-production designer, taking inspiration from Gris Grimly’s original design for the Pinocchio character.
The film’s puppets will be built by Mackinnon and Saunders (Corpse Bride).
The song lyrics are by del Toro and Katz, with music by Academy Award winner Alexandre Desplat who will also write the score.
Quote from Melissa Cobb, Vice President of Kids and Family at Netflix: “Throughout his distinguished career, Guillermo has exhibited mastery in inspiring people through his magical worlds filled with unforgettable and magnificent characters, from the monsters in Pan’s Labyrinth to the aquatic creature in The Shape of Water. We are incredibly excited to expand our relationship with Guillermo and we know that his deeply touching vision for bringing Pinocchio to life on Netflix will be embraced by audiences the world over.”
“After years of pursuing this dream project, I found my perfect partner in Netflix. We have spent a long time curating a remarkable cast and crew and have been blessed by continuous support from Netflix to quietly and carefully soldier on, barely missing a beat. We all love and practice animation with great passion and believe it to be the ideal medium to retell this classic story in a completely new way,” says del Toro.
ABOUT GUILLERMO DEL TORO
Guillermo del Toro is one of the most innovative filmmakers working today. Consistently breaking creative ground with every project, del Toro continues to blur the lines with increasing frequency and ease between film and television, live action and animation.