Guillermo Del Toro Presents First Look at ‘Pinocchio’

Guillermo del Toro introduced an exquisite scene and new teaser trailer from his anticipated stop-motion Pinocchio on Wednesday at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival.

As one would expect from the visionary director, the craftsmanship — from the stylized character and production design to the lighting and sound — makes for a rich rendering of the Oscar-winning filmmaker’s reimagining of classic 1883 novel The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi, which follows a wooden marionette created by grieving woodcarver Geppetto.

In the moody scene, Geppetto (voiced by David Bradley) wakes in his woodcarving space next to a bottle and a broken picture frame, when he hears noise in his attic. “Who goes there?” he asks as he climbs the creaky ladder to the attic, revealing Pinocchio (Gregory Mann). “You asked for me to live. I’m your son,” the awkward wooden boy replies.

Geppetto can’t believe what he is hearing, and Cricket (Ewan McGregor) appears and tells him that Pinocchio is telling the truth.

The voice cast also includes Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, Christoph Waltz, Ron Perlman, Finn Wolfhard, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson and Burn Gorman.

Del Toro and Mark Gustafson (The PJs) are directing, and del Toro penned the screenplay with Patrick McHale. Del Toro, Lisa Henson, Alex Bulkley, Corey Campodonico and Gary Ungar are producing the stop-motion production, which is being made at Shadow Machine in Portland, Ore.

Pinocchio is slated for release in December on Netflix. Meanwhile, a competing adaptation, from Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks, arrives on Disney+ in September.