'Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio' Trailer Reveals Netflix's Atmospheric Disney Rival
"It's a story you may think you know -- but you don't!"
We all know the Disney version, but imaginative filmmaker Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio looks to be putting an evocative spin on the familiar story. Netflix has released a trailer for the stop-motion animated film, which comes out late this year shortly after Disney releases its own live-action Pinocchio movie with Tom Hanks.
Directed by Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson, the Netflix version uses actual puppets to tell the story of a mischievous marionette vision brought to life by a grieving woodcarver. The atmospheric trailer is narrated by Ewan McGregor as Cricket, spinning a yarn about love and loss, "imperfect fathers" and "imperfect sons," and "old spirits who rarely involve themselves in the human world."
Toymaker Gepetto's voice is provided by David Bradley (who played Argus Filch in the Harry Potter films and Walder Frey in Game of Thrones). Newcomer Gregory Mann voices the puppet who longs to be a real boy. Finn Wolfhard, Cate Blanchett, John Turturro, Ron Perlman, Christoph Waltz and Tilda Swinton also star.
Del Toro's Pinocchio will be in theaters in November and streams on Netflix some time in December.
The Disney version will pip del Toro and Netflix to the punch, however. The live-action Disney remake will be streaming on Disney Pluson Thursday, Sept. 8. Here's the trailer for the Disney version, if that's your wish come true:
Oscar-winning Back to the Future and Forrest Gump director Robert Zemeckis helms the non-animated retelling of the story first animated by Disney in 1940. Disney's Pinocchio is played by young Benjamin Evan Ainsworth from The Haunting of Bly Manor, with Hanks as Geppetto. Joseph Gordon-Levitt voices Jiminy Cricket, Cynthia Erivo is the Blue Fairy, Keegan-Michael Key plays Honest John, Luke Evans plays the Coachman and Lorraine Bracco voices new character Sofia the Seagull.
