Disney’s Live-Action ‘Pinocchio’ Casts Cynthia Erivo As The Blue Fairy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt As Jiminy Cricket
Disney might have wished upon a star to land the cast it got for the live-actionPinocchioremake. Joining a cast led byTom Hanksas the toy maker Gepetto areCynthia ErivoandJoseph Gordon-Levitt, who are adding their star power to theRobert Zemeckis-directed live-action/CGI hybrid film.
The Wrapbroke the news that Cynthia Erivo and Joseph Gordon-Levitt have been tapped to star in Disney’s live-actionPinocchioremake, both taking on the roles of two Disney icons. Erivo will be playing the Blue Fairy, who grants Gepetto’s wish to turn his wooden puppet into a boy, while Gordon-Levitt puts on a top hat (presumably) to play Jiminy Cricket, the talking cricket who acts as Pinocchio’s conscience. The pair join the already-cast Tom Hanks, who was thefirst to join the cast as Geppetto, andLuke Evans, who plays thehot child-abducting coachman.
But what of the little wooden boy himself, you might ask? The Wrap also reports thatBenjamin Evan Ainsworth(Flora and Ulysses) has been cast as the voice of the title character Pinocchio, confirming that the puppet will be created in CGI, or least using heavy visual effects.Keegan-Michael Keyhas also been cast as the voice of Honest John, whileLorraine Braccois playing the voice of a new character, Sofia the Seagull.
Zemeckis is directing co-writing the script ofPinocchiowithChris Weitz, who wrote the 2015Cinderellaremake starring Lily James and was one of the writers ofRogue One: A Star Wars Story. Weitz will also produce withAndrew Miano. Based on the Disney 1940 animated classic, the live-action remake will be heading straight to Disney+, presumably because it’s one of the remakes that garners less interest than a remake of one of the beloved Disney Renaissance films of the ’90s.
It’s not a complete shame that it’s being rather unceremoniously dropped on Disney+, however, because thePinocchioremake has all the makings of becoming another ill-advised experiment from Zemeckis. The director of such films asWelcome to MarwenandThe Witcheshas developed a reputation as of late in putting technology before the rest of the film, using the projects to play with new developments in motion-capture or CGI, to the detriment of the stories. WithPinocchioset to be a live-action/CGI hybrid, I imagine it will be much of the same.
Pinocchiowill begin production next month in the U.K. and will debut on Disney+. Miano and Weitz are producing through their company Depth of Field along with Zemeckis' Imagemovers.
