The Museum of Modern Art welcomed a highly anticipated work of art into its halls on Dec. 6 when it hosted the red-carpet premiere of Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, the beautifully crafted stop-motion animated retelling of the classic Carlo Collodi story with an all-new twist and all-star voice cast.
Guillermo del Toro himself walked the carpet of his film’s US premiere along with a model of his animated lead at his side. He spoke to Netflix about how he’s anticipating audiences seeing his passion project for the first time.
“It’s [been] a long, long journey and those are the best because you come to the other side of the mountain with something that you want to share,” the award-winning writer-director said. “Most of the time, it’s a surprise, it’s a toss-up. You don’t know how people are going to react.”
But del Toro is confident that his film will land with audiences in a beautiful, if not unexpected, way. “It’s never been told this way,” he said of his reimagining of the fairy tale. “We wanted to make it thematically relevant for right now, emotionally relevant for right now, and it’s the most beautiful piece of animation. Stop-motion, the best medium... it’s an innovative experience. You’re looking at miniature sets, miniature actors, and they break your heart.”
Del Toro partnered with Mark Gustafson as co-director to help bring this stop-motion vision to life and cast talented actors to voice the characters, including Ewan McGregor, David Bradley, Burn Gorman and newcomer Gregory Mann, who plays the titular role and told Netflix how excited he was for everyone to see the film.
“It’s taken so long, almost three or four years that I’ve been in the [recording] booth so to come down to one day [until launch] and for all my friends to come and see it, I can’t wait!” Mann said.
Mann knows that when people finally see the movie that he and the rest of the crew have been working so hard on, it will stay with them forever, no matter their age.
“What I think is so good about this movie is that any age group can watch it,” he said. “Even though it’s an animation, it’s really not [just] for kids. A 7-year-old child can watch it and love and enjoy the movie, but then a 45-year-old man or a 70-year-old lady [can as well] because there’s so many morals behind it. It’s accessible to all age groups.”
See for yourself when Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio comes to Netflix on Dec. 9.
