Guillermo Del Toro Now Co-Directing Stop-Motion ‘Pinocchio’
By Russ Fischer/May 10, 2012 3:30 pm EST
So, with the number of projects del Toro has started to produce over the past few years stacked against the ones that have actually been finished, I’d understand if anyone took a ‘wait and see’ attitude towards this Pinocchio. Now it might have taken a big step towards a green light, however, as del Toro says that he’ll co-direct the film with Gustafson, with a summer 2013 shoot planned.
GDT told Variety the film takes place in Italy between the two World Wars when, as he says, “everyone was behaving like a puppet, except for puppets.”
So what happened to make him want to take the director’s chair? Guillermo, who wrote the story with Grimly and Matthew Robbins, said “little by little, I realized that I should direct.” And he’d once wanted to direct this himself, back before Pan’s Labyrinth. His statement today could mean a lot of different things — was Grimly not getting the job done, somehow? Did del Toro simply not want to watch others direct? What other circumstances were at play? In the end it doesn’t really matter.
The trade says this will be a complex, year-long shoot. So after Pacific Rim is finished and released, del Toro will be occupied with the little wooden boy for some time.
Last year del Toro said,
At the time, Nick Cave was on board to provide musical consultancy, at least, if not actual tunes, and the puppets (examples of which is in the header image) were set to be made by UK company McKinnon and Saunders (Fantastic Mr. Fox, Corpse Bride).
