Guillermo Del Toro Reveals New Animated Netflix Movie

Following an Academy Award nomination for their take on Pinocchio, stop motion studio ShadowMachine and filmmaker Guillermo del Toro are teaming up for another animated movie at Netflix. Del Toro will adapt The Buried Giant, a fantasy novel by Nobel Prize-winning British writer Kazuo Ishiguro. Del Toro will produce as well as direct, and is co-writing the script with Matilda the Musical scribe Dennis Kelly.

According to Deadline, who broke the news, “the novel follows an elderly Briton couple, Axl and Beatrice, living in a fictional post-Arthurian England in which no one is able to retain long-term memories.”

“Guillermo del Toro is a visionary filmmaker and master of his craft,” Netflix film chariman Scott Stuber said in a statement. “We couldn’t be more proud of the prestigious recognition for his Pinocchio, and we’re pleased to continue our creative partnership as he develops his next project with Netflix.”

“The Buried Giant continues my animation partnership with Netflix and our pursuit of stop-motion as a medium to tell complex stories and build limitless worlds,” del Toro said. “It is a great honor and greater responsibility for me to direct this screenplay which Dennis Kelly and I are adapting from Kazuo Ishiguro’s profound and imaginative novel.”

This announcement comes months after reports that At the Mountains of Madness, Guillermo del Toro‘s long-delayed film that most fans assumed would never happen, is not completely dead yet. In fact, the filmmaker is apparently considering the possibility of releasing it as a stop-motion animated feature instead. 

Here’s how Netflix describes Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio:

Academy Award®-winning director Guillermo del Toro and award winning, stop-motion legend Mark Gustafson reimagine the classic Carlo Collodi tale of the fabled wooden boy with a whimsical tour de force that finds Pinocchio on an enchanted adventure that transcends worlds and reveals the life-giving power of love.

“No art form has influenced my life and my work more than animation and no single character in history has had as deep of a personal connection to me as Pinocchio,” said del Toro in a statement. “In our story, Pinocchio is an innocent soul with an uncaring father who gets lost in a world he cannot comprehend. He embarks on an extraordinary journey that leaves him with a deep understanding of his father and the real world. I’ve wanted to make this movie for as long as I can remember.”

You can see del Toro’s Pinocchio on Netflix now.