Guillermo Del Toro is keeping busy while waiting to see whether Universal will give him the green light to direct the James Cameron–produced, Tom Cruise–attached H.P. Lovecraft story At the Mountains of Madness. He’s just announced that he will produce a new 3-D, stop-motion animated version of Pinocchio with the Jim Henson Company, to be directed by Gris Grimly and Mark Gustafson, who was Fantastic Mr. Fox’s animation director. Though the movie will be aimed at ages 10 and up, Del Toro promises it will be “more surreal and slightly darker than what we’ve seen before,†going on to explain, “the Blue Fairy is really a dead girl’s spiri t… The sperm whale that swallows Pinocchio was actually a giant dogfish … The many mishaps Pinocchio goes through include several near-death close calls, a lot more harrowing moments.†Just so long as Pinocchio doesn’t encounter any of those eyes-in-their-hands monsters. [Deadline]
