Guillermo del Toro on why Pinocchio forms an unofficial trilogy with The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth

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Exclusive: Guillermo del Toro discusses his Pinocchio with Total Film: "It’s a movie that is not for kids, but kids can watch it"

Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio
(Image credit: Netflix)

Pinocchio is back – for the second time this year. The wannabe real boy invaded Disney Plus in Robert Zemeckis' remake of the classic cartoon, and now Guillermo del Toro's bringing the story to Netflix. But, as you would expect from the mastermind behind The Shape of Water and Pan's Labyrinth, this version of Pinocchio is a little different.

"I had this idea that the best way to deal with Pinocchio was to make him part of a stop-motion movie," del Toro tells Total Film in the new issue of the magazine, featuring Avatar: The Way of Water on the cover. "Because everybody’s on a level playing field. All the characters blend very well with the puppet character."

Del Toro's Pinocchio, co-directed by Mark Gustafson, is a wonderful stop-motion creation and features an all-star voice cast: Ewan McGregor is Sebastian J. Cricket, David Bradley is Geppetto, and Tilda Swinton, Christoph Waltz, Cate Blanchett, and del Toro regular Ron Perlman also feature. The world is mesmerising and tactile, and the medium of stop-motion makes some of the weightier themes easier to digest. 

"I think this movie makes an emotional plea for thematic elements that are very heavy," considers del Toro. "What is it to be human? Can somebody be a real human if it’s not possible for that character to die? Which would be a lot heavier with live actors and a CG Pinocchio. I think you inhabit the characters more [in stop-motion].”

"We use the term 'lean in' but I think that’s true," adds Gustafson. "I think the audience will lean into a character like Pinocchio. They’ll forgive him things that you might not forgive a live actor!"

Heavyweight emotional themes, fascist history lessons, and unsettling creatures (wait till you get a load of the Wood Sprite)... is this Pinocchio actually a film for children? "I said it’s a movie that is not for kids, but kids can watch it," explains del Toro of his pitch. "It’s of a piece, for me, with The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth, for a sort of trilogy of stories of children during war, in a way, or innocence lost."

You can read more from the directors of Pinocchio in the new issue of Total Film, which hits stands (and digital devices) this Thursday, November 10. Pinocchio is in cinemas from November 25 and reaches Netflix on December 9.

Total Film's Avatar: The Way of Water covers

(Image credit: 20th Century Studios/Total Film)

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(Image credit: Total Film/20th Century Studios/EarFun)
Matt Maytum
Matt Maytum

Matt Maytum is the former Editor of Total Film magazine. Over the past decade, Matt has worked in various roles for TF online and in print, including at GamesRadar+. Bucket-list-ticking career highlights have included reporting from the set of Tenet and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as covering Comic-Con, TIFF and the Sundance Film Festival.

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