One of Guillermo Del Toro’s many idling projects is back into gear, and all that was necessary was for Del Toro himself deciding to slide a single ass cheek into the director’s chair.
The project is Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio, a 3D stop-motion film produced with Jim Henson Company, at least inspired by a 2002 book of the famous fairy tale illustrated by Chris Grimly. The project has been in motion since 2008, but seemed to pick up steam last year with Grimly co-directing with stop-motion veteran Mark Gustafson (Fantastic Mr. Fox). Now it appears Grimly has taken an executive producing backseat as Del Toro has “come around to the idea of co-directing” with Gustafson himself due to the long and grueling nature of the 1-year stop-motion shoot.
Lest you think this will drag Del Toro away from other projects for too long, keep in mind that he won’t be on set on a daily basis, and that even something like Fantastic Mr. Fox — which bore highly specific characteristics of director Wes Anderson — was largely put together with video directing and remote advising from its overseeing auteur. Gustafson should be quite familiar with such an arrangement, though the whole thing won’t begin till the middle of next year. I wonder where it will ultimately fall on the schedule in relation to Shawn Levy’s Geppetto flick.
With the project gearing up again, Del Toro is apparently devising a redesign of the lead character and mentions that he’d like Tom Waits and Donal Sutherland to join the voice cast while Nick Cave oversees music.
Twitter
Comment Below
Message Board
Source | Variety (via Collider)