Last year it was reported that Tom Hanks (Toy Story) was in talks to play Geppetto in Disney’s live-action Pinocchio remake with Paul King attached for direct. Sadly, both King and Hanks departed the project. Now, it looks like Hanks is back in.
According to Deadline, Tom Hanks is back in early talks for the role. Hanks reportedly reached out to new director Robert Zemeckis who signed on the project last fall, and let him know he wants to do the film. Disney has always longed for Hanks to play the woodcarver.
Read: Jude Law In Talks To Play Captain Hook In Disney’s Live-Action ‘Peter Pan’
Zemeckis will also co-write the next draft with Chris Weitz (Bambi), Andrew Miano and Weitz will produce Pinocchio through their company Depth of Field. Harry Potter And The Cursed Child Playwright Jack Thorne recently wrote a draft as well.
The film is expected to 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.
Source: Deadline
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COURTY
August 7, 2020 at 3:29 pm
For the live-action Pinocchio, I hope so much that there will be this music Coach to Pleasure Island 0:48 to 2:25 and Hi Diddle Dee Dee An Actor’s Life for Me, and that Monstro will always be a sperm whale or a Livyatan Melvillei and that he will ultimately have a rather heroic role in attacking and swallowing Pinocchio’s enemies: Stromboli or the coachman. I would not be against Honest John and Gedeon becoming heroic in the end like Lefou in Beauty and the Beast of 2017.