when tim burton's alice in wonderland
made over one billion dollars worldwide
studio executives sat up and took notice
there was now a rush to find the next
classic adaptation that could transcend
its roots to appeal to adults as well as
their children
the plan was to trade in nostalgia brand
recognition and preferably another
public domain
work it was only a matter of time until
someone blew the sawdust off pinocchio
and reimagined the character all over
again
in january 2012 tim burton was attached
in principle to the project which at the
time was looking to sign up robert
downey jr
the actor was said to be eager to star
as geppetto and to have input into the
final script
as in this iteration of the story the
perspective would be from geppetto's
point of view
and we follow his mission to find and
save his marionette son
the character a creation of carlo kolodi
first appeared in an 1881 comic strip
before the story was extended and
published as a book two years later
the classic story of the wooden puppet
who learns goodness and becomes a real
boy is famous
the world over and has been familiar in
english for over a century
from the moment geppetto the carpenter
carves a puppet that can walk and talk
this wildly inventive fantasy takes
pinocchio through
countless adventures during the course
of which his nose grows whenever he
tells a lie
he is turned into a donkey and is
swallowed by a dogfish
before finally gaining real happiness
producer dan jinx would tell the
guardian newspaper that
downey jr will star as the father when
tim burton directed alice in wonderland
seven years ago it became one of the top
grossing pictures in history
and so everybody looked at the giant
titles that were in the public domain
and that could possibly be exploited
that's literally what we did i had been
working with the writer brian
buller i pitched him five titles in the
public domain and one was pinocchio
the producer spoke of delivering a
faithful rendition of the story saying
that the source material was
quite frightening it's nothing like the
disney cartoon and burton has proved
many times over that children appreciate
the dark in the mysterious much more
than we give them credit for
he pointed out the story of the world's
most famous puppet transcended cultures
having been translated into more than
240 languages
jinx said the story has a dark soul
the book hides themes that have yet to
be developed the voice of the dead
little girl
black bunnies a nose that grows on its
own a boy morphing into a donkey
these are just some of the scenes that
reflect the ancient oral traditions
pinocchio's author grew up with
i intend to stick close to that powerful
story
the screenwriter hired for the job brian
fuller was interviewed at the time about
the status of burton's pinocchio
he said not only is pinocchio one of the
most emotional fairy tales it's also one
of the creepiest
i find a land of play sequence where
pinocchio and the boys are transformed
into donkeys and sold into hard labor to
be
truly scary if you look back to the
original carlo collodi story
it's full of really subversive moments
it's a strange tale
i think the message of stranger danger
still holds true for pinocchio but it is
at its heart a fantastical adventure
about identity
how we define ourselves how others
define us and what ultimately we wish we
could be
there are so many iconic set pieces and
characters to play with it's
terrifically exciting it's exactly why i
love writing
of course i love the exciting set pieces
the marionette theater
the land of play and of course gepetto's
rescue from the belly of a big fish
but if what's happening between geppetto
and pinocchio doesn't connect
emotionally you won't care about any of
it
when asked for any hints about burton's
plot the writer replied
the blue fairy is the villain this
version of pinocchio will be a more
mischievous character than we've seen
him portrayed in the past
he's both a rascal and a romantic tim
burton's alice in wonderland was so
successful because it made good on all
the iconography of the original disney
classic
it gave the audience all the memorable
moments and characters they came to see
but with a twist or expansion that made
those characters and moments wholly
fresh again
it creates a sort of mash-up aesthetic
to these modern fairy tale retellings
that can be a sentimental experience for
both adults
and children when it connects the deal
was never set in stone despite warner
bros strong desire to get the production
started
sticking points included the fact that
downey was slated to begin work on iron
man 3
while burton was said to be strongly
considering the miss
peregrine's home for peculiar children
adaptation as his next directing project
as the project stalled over the next
nine months x-men first-class
screenwriter jane goldman was brought on
board to do some script doctoring
but star and director would eventually
become unavailable
fuller would reflect on the non-starter
project saying
i wrote a script a couple of years ago
and was in london working with tim
burton on that
it was very exciting when tim left the
project they chose to go with a
different script
the project then went back into
development which was unfortunate
it was essentially green lit and ready
to go but then there was an abrupt
change and tim left the project
it was very much a tim burton picture
and the script i wrote was designed to
be a tim burton
picture there was darkness emotion and a
kind of recollection to edward
scissorhands with the style of
storytelling where there was a sweetness
to it
there was a lot of humor of the
absurdity to the situation
and is geppetto losing his mind with
this doll coming to life
it wasn't as dark as the source material
because if you read it it is
pretty bleak and all about starving
children about what you do to survive
from what i understand they are now
doing something completely different
that doesn't have much to do with the
source material at all
i was so proud of the script and
developing the script with tim burton
was a career highlight for me
it's a shame that the movie we were
working on didn't get made but i look at
that experience and being able to sit in
a room with
tim and talk about the story the design
of it was just amazing
i will always have that experience even
if i don't have the film
[Music]
is there any truth on a pinocchio movie i
want to talk to him about it yeah come
on it's tim burton