The first look at Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio movie for Netflix has been released – and you can check it out below! Pinocchio features debut actor Gregory Mann as Pinocchio, Ewan McGregor as “Sebastian J. Cricket,” and David Bradley as Gepetto – all of whom are featured in the gallery of first look photos that have been released. We also get a look at the villain Count Volpe, who will be voiced by Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained), as well as the general design and cinematic aesthetic that del Toro has achieved with his stop-motion approach to the Pinocchio story.
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Take a look at some select photos from Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio – you can see the full gallery at Vanity Fair:
As Guillermo del Toro explains, his version of Pinocchio will be a big shift from the traditional story seen in the Disney movie and original book, where the puppet-who-would-be-a-boy goes on a journey of temptation and vice only to reinforce (outdated?) notions of parental obedience. Del Toro wants to tell a different kind of story – one that empowers children to be themselves:
“It’s counter to the book, because the book is seeking the domestication of the child’s spirit in a strange way,” the director says. “It’s a book full of great invention, but it’s also in favor of obeying your parents and being ‘a good boy’ and all that. This [movie] is about finding yourself, and finding your way in the world-not just obeying the commandments that are given to you, but figuring out when they are okay or not.”
To reinforce the themes of the story he’s telling, Guillermo del Toro is also changing up the premise of Pinocchio. The WWII-era version of Italy we’ll get in the film will feature “an environment in which citizens behave with obedient, almost puppet-like faithfulness,” according to del Toro. In that re-fitted framework, disobedience will be the order of the day:
“Many times the fable has seemed, to me, in favor of obedience and domestication of the soul,” del Toro explains. “Blind obedience is not a virtue. The virtue Pinocchio has is to disobey. At a time when everybody else behaves as a puppet-he doesn’t. Those are the interesting things, for me. I don’t want to retell the same story. I want to tell it my way and in the way I understand the world.”
Set during the rise of Fascism in Mussolini’s Italy, PINOCCHIO — a musical directed by del Toro and Mark Gustafson (FANTASTIC MR. FOX) with a score by Alexandre Desplat — is a story of love and disobedience as Pinocchio struggles to live up to his father’s expectations.”
Pinocchio will be released on Netflix later in 2022.
