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If ever there was a movie that would seem a shoo-in for movie theaters, it's a live-action Disney remake of Pinocchio with Tom Hanks. But no: It's streaming on Disney Plus, and the release date has been announced as Thursday, Sept. 8. Here's the trailer for the new flick, if that's your wish come true.
Oscar-winning Back to the Future and Forrest Gump director Robert Zemeckis is in charge of this non-animated retelling of the fairy tale about a wooden puppet who longs to be a real boy, animated by Disney in 1940. Pinocchio is played by young Benjamin Evan Ainsworth from The Haunting of Bly Manor. Hanks stars as toymaker Geppetto, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Jiminy Cricket, Cynthia Erivo as the Blue Fairy, Keegan-Michael Key as Honest John, Luke Evans as the Coachman and Lorraine Bracco as new character Sofia the Seagull.
As it happens, Netflix is also working on its own (animated) version of the Pinocchio story from Guillermo del Toro, starring the voices of Ewan McGregor, Finn Wolfhard, Cate Blanchett, John Turturro, Ron Perlman, Christoph Waltz and Tilda Swinton. That's expected in December. Could it be that Disney Plus is premiering the Disney version rather than releasing it in theaters in order to get onto streaming and into people's living rooms before the Netflix version?
Previous Disney live-action reboots like Beauty and the Beast, The Jungle Book and The Lion King were big box office hits. But the pandemic meant that Mulan and Cruella were released on streaming service Disney Plus when they were meant to hit theaters (like other flicks including Black Widow, Luca and Jungle Cruise). As movie theaters have reopened, Disney has gone back to releasing films like Encanto and Doctor Strange 2 in theaters before they make their way on to the subscription service.
The Pinocchio premiere will coincide with a live event showing off all things Disney Plus: D23 Expo in Anaheim, California. The company promises other new TV shows and movies will also debut or be announced on "Disney Day," including Star Wars, Marvel and Pixar and more.
This follows the premiere of Star Wars miniseries Obi-Wan Kenobi, which was delayed a couple of days to coincide with live event Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim over the weekend.
