Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio Looks Infinitely Better Than Disney’s

You may not have known it, but we are living in the age of Pinnochio with two high-profile, competing films starring the little wooden boy being released this year. The first, a Disney live-action remake, landed with a hollow thud on Disney+ earlier this year, but the second, which is coming to Netflix, is looking a whole lot better as the new official trailer for Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio shows.

We can, of course, start with the look of the thing, which is beyond stunning. For the film, del Toro partnered with Mark Gustafson (The Fantastic Mr. Fox) to deliver what looks like some of the best stop motion we’ve seen in years, not to mention a thoroughly unique look for the puppet brought to life. Every frame of Netflix’s official Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio trailer breathes with a life that the Disney adaptation struggled to find, despite having actual actors in it. The story also looks to flesh out a lot of the holes that Disney’s adaptation has, pulling in far more of a role for Geppetto and giving a lot more agency to Pinocchio himself. In classic del Toro style, the movie also has a tinge of darkness to it as Pinnochio figures out what it means to be “real.”

Like with any good animated movie, the cast is stuffed with names. We already heard Ewan McGregor’s take on Jiminy Cricket The Talking Cricket in the teaser for the film, but this new trailer gives us a chance to hear the rest of the cast as well. Joining McGregor are Gregory Mann, David Bradley, Tilda Swinton, Christoph Waltz, Finn Wolfhard, Cate Blanchett, John Turturro, Ron Perlman, Tim Blake Nelson, and Burn Gorman. You can also hear just from the trailer that the score from Alexandre Desplat is going to be something special.

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio is in insanely limited theaters right now (gotta get that Oscar qualification out of the way) and will land on Netflix on December 9.