Guillermo Del Toro On ‘Pinocchio’ And How His First Attempt At A Stop-Motion Film Was Sabotaged – Contenders L.A.
deadline.comDirector Guillermo del Toro is known for the intense originality of his work, on vivid display in Oscar-winning films from Pan’s Labyrinth to The Shape of Water.
For his latest, the Netflix animated film Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, he again set a high bar for himself. “We believe that we should be bold, we should be crazy,” he said during an appearance at Deadline’s Contenders Film: Los Angeles awards-season event. “We should try things that have never been done, push the art.” RELATED: The Contenders Film: Los Angeles – Deadline’s Full Coverage Del Toro co-directed the film with Mark Gustafson, the stop-motion animator making his feature directorial debut.
It’s a reimagining of the classic tale of woodcarver Gepetto, who carves the boy Pinocchio out of a tree. Gustafson said he responded to the script written by del Toro and Patrick McHale, based on the 19th century original by Carlo Collodi. “It was the unique take that he and Patrick, his co-writer, had on the story,” Gustafson explained. “They came at it with the notion of what is important about being disobedient as opposed to obedience.
In the standard story, Pinocchio has to be a good boy and learn these lessons, and then he becomes a real boy. And they were saying, ‘Well, wait a minute, how do you learn to be yourself?
Read more on deadline.com