Back to the Future and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? director Robert Zemeckis is in talks to helm Disney’s live-action adaptation of Pinocchio, Variety reports.
The trade reports Andrew Miano and Chris Weitz will produce through their company Depth of Field with Weitz penning the script. Harry Potter And The Cursed Child Playwright Jack Thorne recently wrote a draft as well.
Paddington director Paul King had originally been tapped to direct but had to leave the project for unknown reasons at the beginning of the year. David Heyman, who was on board to produce, is also no longer involved with the film.
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Tom Hanks (Toy Story franchise) was in talks earlier this year to star in the project as the fatherly figure Geppetto, but left the project as well.
The film will have a budget of over $150 million, Disney’s live-action remakes of Beauty and the Beast and The Jungle Book had similar budgets, so expect the House of Mouse to put Pinocchio on a grand scale visually.
Released in 1940, Pinocchio was the second animated movie made by Disney, after 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. It adapted the Italian story by Carlo Collodi about a wooden boy puppet crafted by an old carver named Geppetto. The boy is brought to life by a fairy who says he will become a real boy if he shows bravery. The character of Jiminy Cricket becomes his de facto conscience and tried to steer him in the right direction. What follows is a series of adventures that include Pinocchio being kidnapped to be part of a puppet show, getting turned into a donkey, and being swallowed by a whale.
Pinocchio currently has no release date as of yet.
Source: Variety
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