Disney Now Planning Live-Action Pinocchio Too

Sooner or later, Disney are going to run out of animated movies to translate into live action, so they'll have to move down to the next circle, but for now, there's still a few left. Today's selection is Pinocchio, arguably the finest hand-drawn animation the studio ever made. Deadline say that Peter Hedges will write and direct the film for the studio, "loosely" basing it on Carlo Collodi's original book. There have been other loose adaptations of Pinocchio floating around Hollywood in the last couple of years, with Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., Bryan Fuller, Jane Goldman and Tim Burton all getting involved in some way or another. I'm disappointed that the chances of seeing Downey playing both Gepetto and, via the magic of motion capture, the boy puppet seem to be rapidly receding. Hedges is a fine filmmaker. His Dan in Real Life is as polished and detailed an example of the modern rom-com as you can hope to find, and Pieces of April remains an impressive bit of early digital filmmaking. A cynic might suggest that Disney have given him the Pinocchio gig because of his last movie, however. That was The Strange Life of Timothy Green, and it was pretty much a Pinocchio riff through and through, right down to the lead character being constructed from vegetable matter. In any case, Hedges is enough to keep me keen on this new film and I hope to hear more soon. It could be some time, though - Disney have racked up enough of these films to get us into the new decade.