‘Pinocchio’ added to Guillermo del Toro’s Crowded Plate
Director Guillermo del Toro told Bloody Disgusting that he is producing Gris Grimly’s directorial debut, a new version of Pinocchio.
"We are trying to get a full stop-motion version of Gris Grimly’s Pinocchio off the ground, with the Jim Henson Company," del Toro told the site while promoting the DVD release of Hellboy II: The Golden Army. "The idea came from Gris, and everybody loves his book about it. The original story is far more perverse and spooky and semi-necrophilia vibe to it in certain aspects. Gris certainly has that vein in him, he wants to do this with that original spookiness in it, we are trying to get it going. The Jim Henson Company is the behind it and we are currently working on the screenplay! It’s not coming to a screen near you any time soon, even if it were to begin today it would be about three years in the making, but we are working to make it happen. A full-scale puppet universe takes time," he jokes.
Del Toro has been fascinated with puppets it seems given the extensive work on the prologue setting up the story for Hellboy II. He also says he’s developing an original puppet project with Hellboy creator Mike Mignola.