Guillermo del Toro is Hollywood's undisputed king of exciting projects that get announced and then discarded for one reason or another, so getting two back-to-back projects from the Oscar-winner is a dang cause for celebration. Speaking to the director about his upcoming noir Nightmare Alley, Collider's Steve Weintraub also confirmed the filmmaker's stop-motion musical Pinocchio, the Italian fantasy fable most notably adapted by Disney in 1940, will arrive on Netflix at the tail-end of 2022.

"The movie will come out last quarter of 2022," Del Toro told us. "It’s curious because it’s been almost five years since Shape of Water and now it’s going to be two movies in a row one after the other."

Guillermo del Toro on the set of Pacific Rim
Image via Universal

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Pinocchio is one of the most often-adapted fairy tales in history, between the classic Disney version, Roberto Benigni's (many) attempts, and director Robert Zemeckis' upcoming live-action take featuring Tom Hanks as Gepetto. But Del Toro promises to bring a unique, dark eye to the project, citing Mary Shelley's Frankenstein—another literary classic he almost adapted—as an inspiration. The Pan's Labyrinth director also tells us this is a deeply personal project, one he hopes will subvert the expectations audiences have for a well-tread story. Here's exactly what he said:

"It’s a very very very personal movie for me. The flip-side for me [has] always been Pinocchio and Frankenstein, are the same story. Because essentially, that’s the same story. The idea of a Pinocchio that talks about things that I consider very deep but it’s fun and it’s a musical at the same time, I find it really incredibly moving. Obviously, in animation, you get to see the movie in storyboards beginning to end many many times, and then you add the stop-motion. Right now, we are 50% animated and 50% in storyboards. Every time I watch the movie I just sob like a baby. It’s as personal as it gets, as moving as it gets. It’s unlike any version of the story you’ve ever seen. It’s completely unlike it. It subverts the moral underpinnings of the original fable, which is, in order to be a real boy you have to change. You’re going to become flesh and blood. This is about becoming a real boy by acting...acting like a real human, period."

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Image via Searchlight

Del Toro's Pinocchio was first announced by Netflix in 2018, with the news that newcomer Gregory Mann will be playing the title role coming shortly afterward. The project went quiet for a bit, but in 2020 it was revealed Ewan McGregor would be providing the voice for Jiminy Cricket. Shortly after that, the voice cast really began to fill out and is currently operating with an absolutely stacked lineup that includes Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, Finn Wolfhard, Christoph Waltz, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, and, of course, Ron Perlman.

Check out exactly what Del Toro had to say in the player above and be on the lookout for our full interview with the filmmaker on the site soon. Nightmare Alley hits theaters on December 17.