Like many of his projects, Guillermo del Toro’s planned stop-motion animated adaptation of Pinocchio seems to have found itself stuck in limbo, with very little in the way of movement.
In January, del Toro announced that he was still working on the film, and had enlisted Emmy winner Patrick McHale to help pen the screenplay. And now in an interview with IndieWire, the filmmaker has revealed that it is ready to go, but he’s having troubled finding the necessary financing.
“I’ve been looking for financing for almost ten years,” said del Toro. “We have the puppets, we have the design. I always or almost always complicate my life. None of the movies I want to do are easy. And they don’t belong to anything anyone wanted to do at that time. No one wanted to do superheroes when I did Hellboy, no one wanted to do monsters when I did Pacific Rim. When I announced Pinocchio I got many calls: ‘Yeah but it’s set during the rise of Mussolini, it’s an anti-fascist Pinocchio.’ [mimes they all hung up] If you have $35 million and if you want to make a Mexican happy, here I am.”
Del Toro’s latest film The Shape of Water has been earning rave reviews, and there’s even talk of awards buzz for the movie, so perhaps someone will put a smile on his face and come up with the funding soon…
Originally published September 3, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
