Disney’s live-action retelling of Pinocchio comes to Disney+ later this year, and the first trailer has finally brought a look at the wooden boy who is magically brought to life in all his glory. Starring Tom Hanks as Geppetto, Disney released a first look image of Hanks and Pinocchio, who is voiced by Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, back in March. However, this trailer is the first real footage to be shown from the movie, and features all of the key elements of the original animated classic that you would expect. Check it out below.
Pinocchio comes to Disney+ in September and this time around the wooden puppet will become a real body in the first live-action re-telling of the classic Disney animation. Under the direction of Robert Zemeckis, Hanks and Ainsworth are joined in the movie by Cynthia Erivo as the Blue Fairy and Luke Evans as The Coachman, as well as the voices of Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Jiminy Cricket, Keegan-Michael Key as Honest John, and Lorraine Bracco as Sofia the Seagull.
While the storyline of the film will be mostly in line with the original, audiences shouldn’t expect an exact carbon copy, something that Luke Evans made clear when talking on the D23 podcast. He explained:
"In the mind of Bob [Rob] Zemeckis, you can imagine, the things are not going to be the same as they were in the animation. They’re very good. The storyline is very, very similar. But there were certain characters that Bob was able to, you know, dramatically enhance and the Coachman is one of those."
Disney’s Pinocchio is Not the Only Version of the Story Being Told in the Near Future
It seems that after waiting many years for a new retelling of the Pinocchio story, we are getting two pretty much at the same time. Not only are Disney putting out their new version, but Netflix will also be releasing a stop-motion animated version of the story with Guillermo del Toro helming the movie. Of course, there will be a lot of differences between the two stories even if the heart of the tale is the same. Del Toro’s take on the story will look to the 1883 novel by Carlo Collodi as its inspiration, and will be a much darker take.
Coming from the combined efforts of the Jim Henson Company, ShadowMachine and del Toro, as you would guess this is going to be a well-crafted and beautifully animated movie, and it boasts an impressive voice cast to boot. Along with McGregor’s take on the cricket that “lives in the heart of a little wooden boy”, the ensemble cast also features David Bradley as Geppetto, Gregory Mann as Pinocchio, Finn Wolfhard, Cate Blanchett, John Turturro, Ron Perlman, Tim Blake Nelson, and Burn Gorman, with Christoph Waltz and Tilda Swinton.
In production since 2018, del Toro originally described the project as a story where “Pinocchio is an innocent soul with an uncaring father who gets lost in a world he cannot comprehend. He embarks on an extraordinary journey that leaves him with a deep understanding of his father and the real world.” Having been delayed in the wake of the Covid pandemic, del Toro’s Pinocchio is also expected to arrive later this year.