Disney has released a brand new full clip from their upcoming live-action remake of Pinocchio. In recent years, the company has been focused on remaking their classic animated features, bringing everything from their classic princess films Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast to other childhood classics like Dumbo and The Jungle Book to new life on the big screen. However, they haven’t skimped on the small screen either. In fact, one of their first major Disney+ features after the streaming service’s launch was a live-action retelling of Lady and the Tramp. As a Premier Access option in 2020, they also premiered their live-action retelling of Mulan when it wasn’t able to open wide in theaters due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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This new version of Pinocchio, which was originally adapted by Disney from the Carlo Collodi children's book The Adventures of Pinocchio as an animated feature in 1940, was directed by Back to the Future's Robert Zemeckis and begins streaming on September 8, 2022. The film stars Tom Hanks as Geppetto, a lonely woodcarver who makes a puppet named Pinocchio (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) who comes to life and desires to be a real boy. Followed by his conscience, embodied in the form of Jiminy Cricket (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Pinocchio—whose wooden nose grows whenever he tells a lie—gets into a variety of comic scrapes. The cast of this new iteration will also include Luke Evans as The Coachman, Keegan-Michael Key as Honest John, and Cynthia Erivo as The Blue Fairy.
Today, Disney shared a brand-new clip showing off both Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket. The scene takes place after Pinocchio has joined a marionette show and is locked in a birdcage backstage. As he lies to Jiminy about the decisions that led to his incarceration, his nose begins to grow and grow. Check it out below:
Because both the characters featured in this clip are CGI, it really shows off the designs that Zemeckis is utilizing for this project. The director has made a name for himself in experimenting with using CGI technology, from his early computer-generated motion-capture animated films The Polar Express and A Christmas Carol to his recent works like the CGI-laden Welcome to Marwen. This new project certainly seems in keeping with those works, as the CGI is being used to create stylized versions of the characters rather than photorealistic interpretations, like what was seen in Jon Favreau’s 2019 The Lion King.
While reactions to the characters' designs will vary, the story being told in this clip is very familiar. Disney clearly hasn’t strayed too far from their original film for this adaptation of Pinocchio. That will likely comfort those who want something recognizable and familiar amid the all-new look and feel of a live-action world.