9. The Adventures Of Pinocchio
Like Frankenstein, The Adventures Of Pinocchio have been adapted seemingly countless times since their original publication. And like Frankenstein with the Karloff iteration, saying the name Pinocchio will bring forth one image in most people's heads: the animated Disney version from 1940. Guillermo del Toro's Adventures Of Pinocchio would probably have been a bit less whimsical to say the least. When he started developing his own adaptation, del Toro was still intending for the puppet-come-to-life to be animated. In fact, he was angling for a stop-motion film in the style of A Nightmare Before Christmas and - most exciting of all - was collaborating with the Jim Henson Company, who hadn't done that sort of thing since their eighties heyday with The Dark Crystal. First look images (above and also
HERE) were created and at one point it looked like it was going to happen. Unfortunately, it looks like it's not to be. Stop-motion is a painstakingly long process, and costly; apparently the failure of similar projects like ParaNorman at the box office nixed the funding of del Toro's Pinocchio. Don't worry (or do) - we'll be getting a new version of the lying puppet from Disney themselves, with Robert Downey, Jr. playing Geppetto.