Disney Releases First Look Image At Their Upcoming Live Action 'Pinocchio' Starring Tom Hanks and Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Disney is still in the process of turning all their classic animated films into live action flicks. They're currently hard at work on traditionally acted versions of The Little Mermaid, Snow White, Peter Pan, and a host of others - but one of the next ones to come out will be Pinocchio, the story of the little wooden puppet who wanted to become a real boy.
Disney has lined up an all-star cast for this release: First and foremost, it will star the incomparable Tom Hanks as the kindly old shopkeeper Gepetto, Pinocchio's creator and de-facto father. Additionally, it will feature Joseph Gordon-Levitt as everyone's favorite physical manifestation of conscience, Jiminy Cricket, and Academy Award nominee Cynthia Erivo will play the Blue Fairy, who makes the whole tale possible.
Also featured in this film will be child actor Benjamin Evan Ainsworth as Pinocchio. You may recognize his voice from the Netflix show The Haunting of Bly Manor, in which he played Miles Wingrave. The young actor also already has one Disney movie under his belt: he played character William Spivy in Flora and Ulysses.
This is already a pretty hefty cast, but Disney didn't stop there: They re-hired their Gaston from the live action Beauty and the Beast, Luke Evans, to play the coachman, and they've also got famed comedian Keegan-Michael Key in the role of "Honest" John.
Director Robert Zemeckis is also adding a new character, Sofia the Seagull, to be played by Academy Award Nominee Lorraine Bracco.
This isn't the first new character to be added to a recent Pinocchio movie, nor is it the only Pinnocchio movie to be announced of late - we also know that Guillermo Del Toro is directing a stop-motion-style animated version of the tale for Netflix, which will take an interesting spin on the Jiminiy Cricket character that Disney originally invented.
It will be fascinating to see both of these films when they come out and note how they compare. Disney's Pinocchio is set to premiere on Disney+ in September of this year - and Del Toro's launches on Netflix in December.
