Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio can easily overshadow Disney's 2022 live-action Pinocchio remake. Disney's biggest 2D-animated classics continue to be relevant to this day, as they have found success in the form of Disney's live-action adaptations. The commercial success of blockbusters like The Lion King and The Jungle Book opened the gates for several Disney remakes, and now 2022 marks the turn for Pinocchio and The Little Mermaid. Although Disney's Pinocchio had a huge advantage due to the precedent of the 1940 2D-animated hit and Tom Hanks' star power, Guillermo del Toro's upcoming Pinocchio seems like the stronger movie.
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Disney's live-action Pinocchio stays close to the beloved 1940 classic in terms of plot and character design, but it runs into a problem that the rest of Disney's live-action remakes have often encountered: it lacks a clear sense of purpose. The story is overly sanitized, various characters are underused, and Pinocchio's agency over the plot is minimized, which undermines Pinocchio's main message of learning and maturing. While Disney's 2022 Pinocchio isn't as watered-down as 2019's Lion King, it still fails to add anything new to the 1940 animation or the original tale.
On the other hand, Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio seems like a refreshing take on the popular story. It blends a meticulous stop-motion technique and a bold style that showcases Guillermo del Toro's love for dark fantasy. It promises genuine passion behind the writing and filmmaking, and it isn't afraid to put a new spin on Pinocchio himself. The magic of the story's fantastic elements likely won't be lost in translation amidst a transfer to live-action, and the reception of any changes or additions won't depend on the expectations that Disney's animated classic may have established. While Disney's 2022 Pinocchio did make small changes, Del Toro's adaptation seems more ambitious visually, narratively, and thematically. After all, Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio is the director's passion project.
How Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio Will Be Different From Disney's
Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio is based on Gris Grimsly's illustrations, which are known for their whimsically creepy and borderline scary designs. Audiences can expect plenty of influence from Grimsly's spooky art, also seen in modernized versions of Frankenstein and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Trailers and promotional material for the movie have shown that Pinocchio, Jiminy Cricket (Sebastian J. Cricket, in this movie), and the Wood Sprite, a.k.a the Blue Fairy, look less humanoid than usual, more akin to mystical creatures than Disneyfied creations. And most importantly, the CGI-level stop-motion used in Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio gives the classic tale a brand-new format to play with, which will grant it space among dark cult classics such as Corpse Bride and Coraline. Audiences can't expect less from the Jim Henson Company, the same artists behind both The Dark Crystal and The Muppets.
Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio will be set in 1940s fascist Italy instead of the 1800s, and it will likely integrate this historical context into the story. Curiously, Geppetto builds Pinocchio due to his grief for his late son instead of loneliness or curiosity, which is the same change that Disney's 2022 remake made to Geppetto's backstory. But combined with the new setting, Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio is likely to give more dramatic weight to the relationship between Pinocchio and his creator. It wouldn't be surprising to see this version stay true to the original tale's darkest aspects, even though it would be a Pinocchio too scary for younger audiences to see its body horror to its full extent.