What’s a week of movie news without yet another new project for good ol’ Guillermo del Toro? Late last week we got some info on another upcoming movie that he will be overseeing but not personally directing: a 3-D stop motion animated version of Pinocchio, Carlo Collodi’s classic tale about a wooden puppet who dreams of one day becoming flesh and blood. The story has been brought to the big screen many times before (most recently by Roberto Benigni in 2002), but this one aims to be a little darker, making use of the unique visuals of writer/illustrator Gris Grimly. Grimly will be co-directing the film with Mark Gustafson, who was the animation director on Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. The Jim Henson Company and Pathe will produce.

As always, it’s a bit unclear how involved del Toro will be, but he did help to craft the storyline for the film which was then fleshed out in a screenplay written by Matthew Robbins. The two previously worked together on Mimic and Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. Del Toro had this to say about the production:

“There has to be darkness in any fairy tale or children’s narrative work, something the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson and Walt Disney understood… We tend to call something Disney-fied, but a lot of people forget how powerfully disturbing the best animated Disney movies are, including those kids being turned into donkeys in Pinocchio. What we’re trying to do is present a Pinocchio that is more faithful to the take that Collodi wrote. That is more surreal and slightly darker than what we’ve seen before.”

Nick Cave has been enlisted as the film’s music consultant, and MacKinnon and Saunders (Corpse Bride, Fantastic Mr. Fox) will handle the puppets and special effects work. What do you think, does this project sound promising, or has Pinocchio simply been adapted too many times at this point?