Pinocchio may be a real boy, but Geppetto will be brought to life by a real movie star in Disney’s Pinocchio, as 360aproko can confirm that Tom Hanks is in early talks to star in the upcoming live-action retelling.
The casting would serve as the latest collaboration with Robert Zemeckis, who directed Hanks in 2004’s The Polar Express, 2000’s Cast Away and 1994’s Forrest Gump, for which Hanks won the Oscar for Best Actor and Zemeckis took home Best Director.
Disney has been working on a live-action take on the animated classic since 2015, with a number of directors reportedly in the mix before landing on Zemeckis. (He co-wrote the screenplay with Chris Weitz, who previously penned Disney’s 2015 take on Cinderella.)
This is separate from the other Pinnochio project in the works from Guillermo Del Toro, which is stop-motion animation and set to debut on Netflix. (That film is inspired by the original 1883 novel and Del Torro comported it to being “like Frankenstein.”)
As for Disney, Pinocchio is only the latest live-action take following the successes of Aladdin and The Lion King, with the studio’s live-action Mulan (now premiering on Disney+), The Little Mermaid (starring Halle Bailey as Ariel and Jonah Hauer-King as Prince Eric) and Hercules forthcoming.
