Nick Cave and Guillermo Del Toro to Collaborate on Pinocchio Remake
The new stop-motion animation version of Pinocchio will be more truthful, scarier, and probably won't have a Blue Fairy.
In what has to be a coup for goths and fans of the morbid everywhere, Spanish director Guillermo del Toro has confirmed that he'll be producing a 3D stop-motion feature adaptation of the classic fairy tale Pinocchio, alongside Australia's most beloved chain-smoking, lanky haired musician, Nick Cave. The puppets and 3D elements will be developed by the same people who helped design Tim Burton's Corpse Bride and The Fantastic Mister Fox.
It's well-known that Disney has tended to amputate the more disturbing elements of the fairy tales they adapt, so naturally, the version del Toro will present is more faithful to the original story, and hence "more surreal and darker." At the heart of del Toro's version, though, will still be the quest of somebody with inherent goodness trying to be a "real boy." As a kid, the Disney version of Pinocchio was scary enough, but at least there was a singing cricket and a blue fairy. But according to del Toro, the blue fairy is actually the spirit of a dead girl. So, go figure.
Cave will be acting as music consultant on the film which will begin production later this year. Del Toro has been working on the adaptation since 2005, and enlisted the help of Nick Cave early on to try and find the right "voice" for the film. As someone raised on Nick Cave records, I wait in gleeful fright for the results.
[Via Deadline]