A Tropic Thunder reunion may be in the cards.  Robert Downey Jr. has been trying to mount a new feature film version of Pinocchio for some time now, and most recently he had discussions with Tim Burton to possibly direct.  The film is based on an idea by Downey himself, and the actor would tackle the role of Geppetto as well as produce the pic alongside wife Susan Downey.  While on the Iron Man 3 press circuit, the actor recently hinted that his Tropic Thunder director Ben Stiller would be a great fit for the Pinocchio director’s chair, and now it appears that discussions between the two have materialized into something a bit more concrete.  Hit the jump for more.

At last weekend’s WonderCon, I was able to land an exclusive video interview with Guillermo Del Toro.  As you may have noticed, all week we’ve posted parts of the interview (Pacific Rim 2 news, Justice League Dark news, his thoughts on a Pacific Rim vs. Godzilla movie) but it’s now time to offer the entire conversation.

During our extended conversation, we talked about the fans’ positive reaction to the Pacific Rim footage, what the test screenings have been like, how he directs every single detail you see on the screen, his preference for visual sense of depth over 3D gimmicks, the Pac Rim comic book with cover art by Alex Ross, the status of his FX series The Strain, all of his upcoming projects, and so much more.  If you’re a del Toro fan, I promise you will love this interview.  Hit the jump to watch.

Even though Pacific Rim will be Guillermo del Toro‘s first film in five years, he has attached himself to numerous projects both for movies and television.  Just to name a few that are still in development hell, he’s attached to The Haunted Mansion, The Incredible Hulk TV series, and Pinocchio.  And even though Pacific Rim has yet to hit theaters, del Toro and co-writer Travis Beacham are already set to write the sequel for Legendary Pictures.  Del Toro is also in pre-production on adapting his vampire novel trilogy The Strain for television, and is looking ahead to the haunted house feature, Crimson Peak starring Emma Stone and Charlie Hunnam.

Speaking with Steve and WonderCon, del Toro talked about the status of Pacific Rim 2, The Strain, Crimson Peak, how financing tends to determine his next project, writing the script to his indie feature Saturn and the End of Days, what happened to his animated adaptation of Pinocchio, and more.  Also, be sure to check out what del Toro had to say about Justice League Dark.

Lawless – adapted from author Matt Bondurant’s fictionalized account of his family, The Wettest County in the World – tells the story of the infamous Bondurant Brothers, three bootlegging siblings in Prohibition-era Virginia.  Forrest (Tom Hardy), Howard (Jason Clarke) and Jack (Shia LaBeouf) are entrepreneurs with a thriving local moonshine business, until corrupt and lethal Special Deputy Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce) shows up from Chicago to take a piece of what the brothers have built, threatening everything that they represent.  Directed by John Hillcoat and written by Nick Cave, the film also stars Gary Oldman, Jessica Chastain, Mia Wasikowska and Dane DeHaan.

At the film’s press day, Collider got the opportunity to participate in a roundtable and 1-on-1 interview with screenwriter/music composer Nick Cave, in which he talked about how he ended up as the screenwriter on Lawless, what led him to transition into writing films, how he’s always been a visual writer regardless of the medium, making the villain more flashy for Guy Pearce, collaborating with the actors for 10 days prior to shooting, how his scoring collaboration with Warren Ellis works, detaching from the script to enjoy the finished product, how the original cut was about three hours long, and his reluctant cameo in the film.  He also talked about being more interested in collaborating with John Hillcoat than with being a screenwriter for hire, the possibility that he could produce and compose the soundtrack for Guillermo del Toro’s stop-motion Pinocchio, and what happened to The Threepenny Opera that he met with Andy Serkis about doing.  Check out what he had to say after the jump. 

As most of you know, I recently did an epic hour-long video interview with director Guillermo del Toro, and every day this week I’m posting part of it.  For today’s installment I’ve got del Toro talking about DreamWorks Animation’s Rise of the Guardians and co-directing the 3D stop-motion animated iteration of Pinocchio with Mark Gustafson.  Here’s some of the highlights from what he said:

• Rise of the Guardians is the first DreamWorks Animation film that del Toro was able to work on from inception.  He came into Puss in Boots in the middle of production.
• Del Toro and the other people involved were giggling when they watched the opening to Guardians because they couldn’t believe they got away with putting “a dark, moody, and poetic piece” in a big studio movie.
• The images that have been released for Pinocchio are from when Gris Grimly was in charge of production, so del Toro is going to redesign some of the characters now that he’s co-directing. However, the character of Pinocchio will remain the same.
• They’ve already started puppet construction on Pinocchio and del Toro now has to get Nick Cave to start writing the songs for the film.
• He hopes to begin voice recording by January or February of 2013.
• The script is in its fourth or fifth draft, and del Toro has to do one more pass himself then they’ll start casting the film.
• His dream casting is to have Tom Waits as Geppetto.
• Ron Perlman will play a character named Mangiafuoco, who in the Disney version was called Stromboli.

Hit the jump for more.

Guillermo del Toro may very well be the most busy person in Hollywood.  He’s attached to produce/write/direct/develop a multitude of projects, so when it was announced that del Toro would be producing a 3D stop-motion animated iteration of Pinocchio, the news came with the assumption that del Toro wouldn’t have a ton of time to be super hands-on with the project.  All that changed last month when it was announced that, after spending more and more time with the project, del Toro has decided to co-direct with Mark Gustafson.  Though we got our first look at some artwork from the unsurprisingly dark tale last February, some new artwork from Pinocchio has surfaced and it’s unsurprisingly gorgeous.

The image comes from EW, who notes that del Toro doesn’t plan on shooting Pinocchio until 2013 even though he recently stated he’d like to release the film in 2014.  Given that he’s currently busy with post-production on Pacific Rim and pre-production on Beauty and the Beast with Emma Watson, the 2013 start-date makes sense.  Though it appears we have quite a while to wait until we see the finished film, hit the jump to marvel at some of the enticing artwork as well as the previously released images.

It seems like director Guillermo del Toro adds another project to his “to-do” list every month, but welcome news came last week when it was announced that del Toro is planning to co-direct his first stop-motion animated feature.  The filmmaker is spearheading an adaptation of Pinocchio alongside co-director Mark Gustafson, based off of author Gris Grimly’s dark interpretation of the story that takes place in Italy between World War I and World War II.  Though the year-long filming process on the 3D feature doesn’t begin until next summer, del Toro recently revealed a few names that may or may not end up as part of the voice cast.  Hit the jump for more.

In February 2011, we reported that Guillermo Del Toro was developing a 3D stop-motion animated adaptation of Pinocchio with author Gris Grimly and Mark Gustafson co-directing based off Grimly’s 2002 book.  Today, Variety reports that Del Toro has now stepped in to co-direct with Gustafson (there’s no mention of Grimly).  Del Toro is currently in post-production on the blockbuster monster movie Pacific Rim, which is due out July 12, 2013.  He and Gustafson (animation director for Fantastic Mr. Fox) plan to start a year-long shoot for Pinocchio in summer 2013.  Del Toro wrote the script with Grimly and Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark co-writer Matthew Robbins.

Hit the jump for more.

The black and white, stop-motion animated 3D film Frankenweenie, from director Tim Burton and based on the ideas in his 1984 live-action short, is a heart-warming tale about a boy and his beloved dog.  After unexpectedly losing Sparky, young Victor (voiced by Charlie Tahan) sews him back together and harnesses the power of science to bring his best friend back to life, but quickly faces unintended and sometimes monstrous consequences for his actions.  The voice cast also includes Catherine O’Hara, Martin Short, Martin Landau, Atticus Shaffer and Winona Ryder.

During an early press day for the film, in which we got the chance to preview nearly 30 minutes of the film, director/producer Tim Burton talked about expanding the original story from his short, where the idea originally came from, casting actors that he hadn’t worked with in a while to voice some of the characters, how the stop-motion medium has changed over the years, his hope that younger audiences will want to explore the monsters that he’s paying tribute to in the film, and post-converting to 3D.  He also talked about the fact that Seth Grahame-Smith is working on writing Beetlejuice 2 and that he might be interested in getting involved depending on what he thinks of the script, the rumor about him doing a Pinocchio movie with Robert Downey Jr., and that Big Eyes is in the works, but that you never know what will be ready to go next.  Check out what he had to say after the jump.

Given Robert Downey Jr.‘s status as one of our biggest movie stars, I was surprised to see he only has two film officially slated over the next couple years, The Avengers and Iron Man 3.  I don’t know how long that will stick, though, since he’s been connected to a dozen or so projects.  A flashy possibility surfaced last week: a new version of Pinocchio directed by Tim Burton, starring Downey as Gepetto.  At the Brazilian premiere of Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Downey confirmed his interest in the project to our partners at Omelete:

“I want to talk to him about it, yeah!  C’mon, it’s Tim Burton.”

In the interview, Downey also talked about his excitement about re-teaming with Kiss Kiss Bang Bang director Shane Black on Iron Man 3, suggesting it has the potential to be “one of the better superhero movies that’s ever been made.”  Hit the jump for the quote and the clip.

Competing projects with the same premise (usually based on a fairy tale) has become a thing as of late, and a new race has just kicked into high gear. Director Tim Burton is interested in directing Warner Bros.’ take on Pinocchio, and he has his eye on Robert Downey Jr. to star as Geppetto. The film tells the story of the woodcarver’s quest to reunite with his missing marionette. While it’s easy to roll one’s eyes at a project like this, the Black List script was written by Pushing Daisies creator Bryan Fuller. If it’s anywhere near the delightfully charming tone of his ill-fated television series, this Pinocchio take could make for quite the feature film. Throw in Burton and Downey Jr. and that’s a whole lot of whimsy. Hit the jump for more.

Each year, Hollywood releases “The Black List.” The list is a compilation of the “best” unproduced scripts making the rounds of Hollywood, as voted on by hundreds of film executives. Past scripts that have made their way to the list include Diablo Cody’s Juno and Aaron Sorkin‘s The Social Network. This year, topping the list is Graham Moore’s script for the Alan Turing biopic The Imitation Game. Turning was a mathematician and codebreaker during World War II who was criminally prosecuted for his homosexuality, after which he elected chemical castration over prison, and eventually ended his own life.

The Imitation Game has been in the works for a while, and last we heard Warner Bros. was keen on getting Harry Potter director David Yates to take the helm. Leonardo DiCaprio is also said to have taken a liking to the role of Turing. Also appearing on the list is Matt Damon’s planned directorial debut Father Daughter Time and Chewie, which tells the behind-the-scenes story of Star Wars from the perspective of Peter Mayhew. Hit the jump to peruse the entire list, which includes two Pinocchio projects, a movie about catching a screening of Jurassic Park, and zombies!

The first image from David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis plus a first look at the puppet model for Gris Grimly’s Pinocchio has gone online.  Cosmopolis is based on the Don DeLillo novel about a newlywed billionaire (Robert Pattinson) who ends up losing his bride and his billions in a single day.  In addition to Pattinson, the film features an exciting cast including Jay Baruchel, Samantha Morton, Juliette Binoche, Paul Giamatti, Mathieu Amalric, Kevin Durand, and Sarah Gadon.  The first image from the film was snapped by Cronenberg’s daughter Caitlin, who is a talented photographer in her own right.

The Pinocchio puppet comes from Gris Grimly and Mark Gustafson’s adaptation of Grimly’s gritty but faithful graphic novel adaptation of Carlo Colodi’s famous story.  We previously reported that Guillermo del Toro will be producing with the Jim Henson Company to turn the book into a 3D stop-motion animated feature.  The production is also working from a script by composer/screenwriter Nick Cave (The Proposition).  This puppet isn’t being used in the film, but it’s a model to show potential distributors.  Hit the jump to check out both images.

Guillermo del Toro, The Jim Henson Company, and Pathe are set to produce a 3D stop-motion animated adaptation of Pinocchio.  Deadline reports that Gris Grimly and Mark Gustafson (animation director for Fantastic Mr. Fox) will direct the new version which will be “edgier” than the 1940 Disney adaptation. Grimly illustrated a 2002 book based on the character that will serve as the basis for the project.  Del Toro and collaborator Matthew Robbins (Mimic, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark) crafted the story with Robbins penning the script.

Hit the jump for more exciting details on this project, including the participation of writer/composer Nick Cave (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford).

I’ve covered Tangled since Comic-Con in late July, and I have developed a certain rapport with co-directors Byron Howard and Nathan Greno. Besides making a great effort for Walt Disney Animation Studios’ 50^th animated feature film, the duo are incredibly easy to talk to and time seems to fly by with them. This week I will be posting interviews with the cast and crew, and I decided that for my third interview with Nathan and Byron, I would go a bit lighter and just have fun. These guys have to be exhausted, but their hard work was worth the effort as evidenced by the end product. So hit the jump for my brief interview where I inquire about life after Tangled, what it was like to wrap on the film, Easter Eggs, special features on the home video release, and whether Nathan is itching to get at any of the Marvel properties.