"BACK TO THE FUTURE" AND THE PINEAL GLAND - DESENMASCARANDO LAS FALSAS DOCTRINAS

PHOTO: MICHAEL KOVAC/GETTY IMAGES; EVERETT COLLECTION

Robert Zemeckis wished upon the right star.

The Back to the Future filmmaker has closed a deal to direct Disney's live-action remake of Pinocchio, EW has confirmed. Zemeckis will also co-write a new draft of the screenplay with Chris Weitz (the writer of 2015's Cinderella), who is producing the film as well.

This comes on the heels of the news that Disney has a photorealistic Bambi remake in the works. Taken together, these developments suggest that the Mouse House is making a substantial effort to emotionally scar a new generation of kids: 1940's Pinocchio, after all, is known as one of the most demented Disney films in the canon. (Between the kids turning into donkeys, its hero getting locked in a cage, and a few of the studio's most grotesque villains, the movie has been giving kids a flood of nightmares for almost 80 years now.)

The Pinocchio remake has taken a relatively long and bumpy road to the screen. The project was first announced in 2015, and has seen both 1917's Sam Mendes and Paddington's Paul King join and then depart as director. Tom Hanks was reportedly in talks to play Pinocchio's "father" Geppetto in 2018; it's unclear if he is still attached to the film.

Zemeckis is currently directing a new adaptation of Roald Dahl's The Witches, starring Anne Hathaway and Octavia Spencer, for Warner Bros. That film will hit theaters Oct. 9. Pinocchio does not yet have a release date.

Related content:

Pinocchio Is the Perfect Chance for Robert Zemeckis’ Comeback

By Carlos T. Lopes

Published Jun 4, 2022

Pinocchio is the next live-action animation movie in a series of revivals of Disney’s iconic classics. Robert Zemeckis is undoubtedly the perfect director for the film, as his experience with motion-capture animation precedes Andy Serkis and James Cameron, although his name has been mostly overshadowed by them. Pinocchio can set a great return to Zemeckis’ directorial full form.

With the Back to the Future trilogy, director Robert Zemeckis earned a special place in the hall of the great directors of his generation. His legacy is unquestionable, but his name went under the radar in comparison to Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and James Cameron. Zemeckis was one of the first to see the real potential of motion-capture animation, but his latest movies were either box-office flops or forgettable hits that never achieved iconic status. With Disney’s Pinocchio, the director is not only attaching his name to one of the biggest stories ever told but also culminating most of his best work.

Zemeckis became known for using technology not only as a means of filmmaking but also in storytelling. He blends modern technology with vintage aesthetics, like the time-traveling DeLorean, but it always serves the narrative. At the height of his career in 1995, he won the Best Director Academy Award with Forrest Gump as recognition of how classic effects like fades, forced perspective and match-cuts combined so well with CGI to tell a genuine story. With Flight and The Walk, he returned to such fine filmmaking, but it was mostly forgotten by audiences. Even Death Becomes Her and the recent The Witches remake reveal the director’s comedic trait, which unfortunately falls into forgetfulness.

Zemeckis was one of the pioneers of motion-capture filmmaking and combining animation with live-action footage. In Who Framed Roger Rabbit, cartoons co-exist with humans in the 1947 real world of Los Angeles, a time when animation and the star system were at their peak. Zemeckis made the animated characters feel natural by the way they interacted with real actors and sets. Later, his efforts with mo-cap technology in The Polar Express, Beowulf and A Christmas Carol were not that fortunate. While these films continued to track Zemeckis' love for classical stories rendered modern through technology, the animation was mostly clumsy. Even so, Beowulf was the first 3D wide release in theaters just two years before Avatar came along to change the game.

Nevertheless, his affinity for technology is suffused with fantasy and superstition. Beowulf is such an example, primarily by using cinema’s most recent zenith -- 3D projection -- to tell the most ancient of written stories. But it is in Contact that Zemeckis overspreads the narrative with a conjunction of science and fiction, which go hand-in-hand in explaining cosmic mysteries to humanity. Based on the Carl Sagan novel, Contact is probably his most personal movie but is also a lost title in the mix of his outstanding body of work. Pinocchio's extraordinary story of a man who wishes upon a star to give life to a wooden puppet brushes on a similar transcendental vision. If anyone can pull off such an adaptation, it is Robert Zemeckis.

Despite always pushing the boundaries with technology in his films and paving the way for other filmmakers to pick up those technologies, Zemeckis has always persisted in his vision. He is one of the most versatile filmmakers who can navigate different genres with the utmost storytelling respect and understanding. If anything, Pinocchio will be the sum of the best of his films and could be the ultimate comeback to fine filmmaking while finally delivering the live-action animated movie of his career.

Pinocchio arrives on Disney+ on September 8.

https://www.cbr.com/pinocchio-robert-zemeckis-comeback-chance/