There is just a little over a week till the debut of the live-action Pinocchio remake, and to celebrate, a new featurette has been published, providing fresh details about the film and new footage from the film, as well as commentary from the cast. Tom Hanks, who portrays Gepetto, is interviewed for the featurette and sings the director’s praises. Robert Zemeckis directed the picture. The actor remarked, “Bob is one of these films who takes you to areas beyond your expectations.” The voice of Jiminy Cricket, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, also makes an appearance in the documentary and describes Zemeckis’s collaboration with Pinocchio as “a marriage made in heaven.”
Star of the film and Blue Fairy herself, Cynthia Erivo, says the tale will inspire people to go after their goals. Erivo will also perform an original arrangement of “When You Wish Upon a Star,” which won an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1999. Luke Evans, who is briefly visible in the teaser as the Coachman, also provides commentary in this extra. More of the character is seen in the featurette as he takes children to Pleasure Island, which, as anyone who grew up with the original classic knows, is famous for turning badly behaved children into donkeys.
Whether or not this part of the story will be faithfully adapted to live action is unclear. Evans, who portrayed Gaston in the live-action Beauty and the Beast remake, returns to the role of a legendary Disney villain with his cameo as the scary Coachman. For his work on the likes of the Back to the Future films and Forrest Gump, Robert Zemeckis needs no introduction. Disney and Zemeckis have worked together before; in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Pinocchio makes a brief appearance. The director’s last project for the studio was Disney’s A Christmas Carol, in which Jim Carrey portrayed Scrooge.
Perhaps Zemeckis, a filmmaker known for his work in dark children’s films, is the right person to adapt one of Disney’s worst stories into the live-action medium. Acclaimed director Guillermo del Toro is also directing his own version of the narrative to be released at the same time as Disney’s remake. His stop-motion animated take of the narrative will premiere on Netflix in December, and it will look very different from Disney’s Pinocchio. For nearly a decade, Del Toro tried to get the movie off the ground, but it remained in development purgatory until Netflix bought it up.
There are two more Pinocchio movies coming out this year, and it will be fascinating to watch how they vary from one another in their treatment of the narrative. On September 8, in celebration of Disney+ Day, the streaming service will debut Pinocchio.