The character of Pinocchio has been popular since the 1883 book “The Adventures of Pinocchio” by Carlo Collodi, but for most people these days, the model for the little wooden puppet who wants to become a real boy was formed by the film version of Walt Disney from 1940. . That Pinocchio, more likeable than the one in the original novel, has survived as the Pinocchio through a series of subsequent films, from the 1965 Belgian-American “Pinocchio in Outer Space” to 21st century adaptations by Roberto Benigni, Matteo Garrone and Robert Zemeckis.
But the newest “Pinocchio,” which Netflix released just three months after Zemeckis’ film, comes from Guillermo del Toro, who took the character out of the world of Disney and squarely into del Toro’s land (a move that helped avoid complicated copyright issues). ).
“The Disney movie is a masterpiece, one of the great animated movies of all time,” said del Toro, whose version of the character is more bratty and solemn. His way of becoming a real boy, for example, is to embrace his mortality. “But we tried to define ourselves by what we wanted to be and not by what we couldn’t be or didn’t want to be. I think the whole team agreed not to negatively review what we couldn’t or shouldn’t do. We got to what we wanted to do.”
But it was easier to come up with the blueprint for this new, less compliant Pinocchio than it was to sway studio executives who remembered Disney’s version of that vision. That’s what del Toro and his co-director Mark Gustafson found, anyway, when they tried to get funding for their $35 million stop-motion film.
“We were definitely on the launch pad and the countdown was going on multiple times, and then someone came into the room and said no,” Gustafson said.
“We were like this for about seven years, in a very, very optimistic yellow light,” del Toro added. “But I think people said no for the right reasons, because we wanted to do something different. To me, that’s not bad news. It’s actually semi-good news.”
“We’re probably on the right track if everyone says no,” Gustafson said.
And yet, that right path doesn’t get the movie made. “Yes,” del Toro admitted. “But it’s like a casting. You see 20 actors who are wrong and one who is right. That’s no different than any other part of the artistic endeavor. I mean, everyone went through ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ except one company. But all you need is one. It’s exactly like filming: you can have 18 bad takes and one good one. The same thing.”
The submission that everyone rejected, they added, included a detailed bible with character designs, an early version of the Pinocchio puppet and some 3-D studies. They would arrive at the studio offices with boards displaying the designs and introducing the story, and then del Toro would talk to the executives about the story instead of leaving them a script to read.
“It was an exciting launch,” Gustafson said. “And Guillermo was so good at pitching. He would have greenlit the movie multiple times.”
“We told everyone and we were close,” del Toro said. “That is the tragedy. I call Hollywood ‘the land of the slow no’. Because you feel that you are close, you are close, you are close, and then they close the coffin on you. You never get there, you know? We had at least two or three companies that looked like they were going to say yes, and then they pulled out.”
Eventually, though, they made their way through the more traditional studios and onto Netflix, where co-CEO Ted Sarandos was more receptive, as he often is, to (relatively) expensive ideas from notable filmmakers.
“It always takes time,” del Toro said. “And with Ted in the pitch room, he said yes that day. It was a yes in the room. That’s wonderful, and that’s weird.”