Brooke Bunny
Disney are ready to dust off another animated classic and give it the live-action treatment.
Hot on the heels of money-spinning successes “Maleficent” and “Cinderella”, the Burbank-based shingle is readying “Pinocchio”, a human-filled version of the classic ‘But I’m a real boy’! tale.
Deadline says Peter Hedges, who wrote “Pieces of April” and “Dan in Real Life” (in other words, he’s usually employed by indie fare), is working on the script. Big gig for him.
No idea when we’ll see this version of “Pinocchio”, after all Disney have at least half-a-dozen other films they’re doing based on some of their treasured movie ‘toons – like “Beauty and the Beast”, “Dumbo”, and “Mulan” – in the works too.
At one stage – and it still might be status quo – Guillermo del Toro was developing a stop-motion “Pinocchio” movie that Robert Downey Jr was producing, with an eye to playing Geppetto in. Ben Stiller was even circling the director position. With all of the other things del Toro, Downey, and Stiller have on that one could’ve just fallen by the wayside.
