Guillermo del Toro says his remake of children's novel The Adventures of Pinocchio is set 'during rise of Mussolini'

Filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro has revealed he approached every big studio in Hollywood to pitch his idea for a dark Pinocchio movie. The Oscar-winning director said he ended up at Netflix when everyone else turned down his stop-motion musical project. [caption id=“attachment_4449325” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] Guillermo del Toro/Image from Twitter.[/caption] ‘‘I went to every studio in Hollywood and they all said no, so whoever says yes, I will make it with that person," Del Toro told The Hollywood Reporter at the Marrakech Film Festival. The director said he had a hard time selling his remake of the Italian children’s novel The Adventures of Pinocchio because the project is set to be a dark political parable set ‘‘during the rise of Mussolini’’. ‘‘It’s not a Pinocchio for all the family. Of course (it is political). Pinocchio during the rise of Mussolini, do the math. A puppet during the rise of fascism, yes, it is (political).’ ‘‘There’s no fable without politics. Rarely can you get in productive discussions in real life right now it’s so tense. It’s much easier for you to listen to me if I tell you ‘Once upon a time …’" he said. Del Toro even compared the titular puppet-come-to-life to Frankenstein’s monster. ‘‘He’s a creature that is created through unnatural means from a father that he then distances (himself) from, and has to learn about failure and pain and loneliness."