No lie: Cast for Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio announced

Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro’s next project will be a stop-motion Pinocchio for Netflix, and he’s bringing a stellar cast along for the ride.

Stop-motion animation is a nostalgic joy I remember fondly from my childhood. Before CGI changed the way we view cinema (creating a “new normal” for special effects and immersive sci-fi landscapes), I looked forward to friendly macabre delights like The Nightmare Before Christmas, which made its horrors palatable for the PG crowd. Studios like Laika have maintained a loyalty to this style, and now Guillermo del Toro is bringing a stop-motion Pinocchio to Netflix.

Anyone who’s followed del Toro’s career is well aware of his fascination with fairy tales commingling with horrors both real (Pan’s Labyrinth) and fantastical (Crimson Peak). He’s always been interested in the perspectives of children processing nightmarish real-world events, or cast-aside outsiders entangled with the inexplicable (The Shape of Water).

Knowing the director, the finished Pinocchio will likely be an artful blend of lighter and darker emotions.

Netflix’s tweet announcing the project shows he is still interested in finding the humanity within horrors based in reality.

Similar to the recent stop-motion efforts of Wes Anderson (the aforementioned Fantastic Mr. Fox and Isle of Dogs), Pinocchio is commanding a stellar voice-actor cast, led by newcomer Gregory Mann in the titular role. I’ll watch anything that features Tilda Swinton, Christoph Waltz, Cate Blanchett, John Turturro, and Ron Perlman, among other noteworthy performers.

In all honesty, if I’ve seen the original Disney version of Pinocchio, it’s been years (and even then, I’m not sure I watched from start to finish). While del Toro’s Oscar-winning mastery of craft has me thinking this will be a success, perhaps it will serve a dual purpose: luring new fans back to the cell animation that brought the original cinematic adaptation to life 80 years ago.

Are you looking forward to Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio? What do you think of the cast? Let us know in the comments.