I’m so glad the Guillermo Del Toro Pinocchio movie is being received really well, because it was literally my most anticipated movie of the year! So here’s some fun facts about the crew, concept, and production that got me excited about this movie and that I think would excite much of tumblr as well:
-the screenplay was cowritten by Del Toro and Patrick McHale, creator of Over The Garden Wall and a writer on Adventure Time.
-the movie was codirected by Mark Gustasfon, who was the animation director of Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)
-the primary art/animation designers of this movie (production designer Curt Enderle, art director Robert DeSue, character designer Georgina Hayns, animation supervisor Brian Leif Hansen, and photography director Frank Passingham) previously worked on projects that include Coraline, the Corpse Bride, Paranorman, Isle of Dogs, Frankenweenie, Kubo, and Chicken Run.
-Besides Netflix, it was produced by the Henson company (always a good sign when you’re doing anything with puppets) and ShadowMachine, who have produced a lot of Adult Swim shows including Robot Chicken, Moral Orel, and Tuca and Bertie, as well as the Netflix original BoJack Horseman.
-Del Toro was inspired to make this adaptation due to the similarities he’d always noticed between the original Pinocchio story and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Both are about a man-made character’s relationship with his father/creator, and his attempts to understand what it means to be human. This inspiration is why the film takes on a gothic feel at times.
-the movie is over 10 years in the making. Del Toro announced the project in 2008 and production began in 2012, but it went into development hell and no further updates were made for several years. Del Toro has described it as his passion project, saying "I've wanted to make this movie for as long as I can remember.”
-the backdrop of Mussolini’s Italy was intended to show how Pinnochio was able to find his own humanity and will in a time where everyone else was acting like a blindly obedient puppet. Del Toro wanted to deviate from the original book’s themes of obeying authority by making his Pinocchio virtuous for questioning the rules and forging his own set of morals. (Also if you know anything about Del Toro, the guy likes to dunk on fascism.)
-Del Toro didn’t feel the need to have Pinocchio become flesh-and-blood at the end of the movie, saying all you need to be a real human is to behave like one.
I was lucky enough to see this movie in 35 mm in a movie theatre on Thanksgiving weekend. If there are any movie theatre showings near you and you’re in a position to be able to attend them, I would totally recommend it especially if you can go with loved ones. It was a gorgeous, heartwarming, and magical movie to experience on a big screen and perfect for the late fall/winter holiday season.
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