Hot off Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio scoring a 2023 Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature, the filmmaker is returning to the medium of stop-motion animation for another Netflix movie. The writer and director also known for Pan’s Labyrinth, the Hellboy movies and The Shape of Water is helming an adaptation of a fantasy novel by Kazuo Ishiguro.
Guillermo del Toro will direct, produce and co-write a movie called The Buried Giant, which is based on the 2015 fantasy novel about an elderly couple living in a fictional time post-Arthurian England where people can no longer retain long-term memories. The announcement comes from The Hollywood Reporter just a couple months after his Pinocchio adaptation became a top viewed movie for those with a Netflix subscription.
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio was the filmmaker’s first foray into stop-motion animation, and it has not only impressed critics, it was in Netflix’s Global Top 10 for four weeks in a row and has found itself among the Top 10 in 92 countries. Given the success, it’s no wonder del Toro, Netflix and the animation studio that brought the story to life, ShadowMachine, are eager to work together again so soon.
The filmmaker previously teased to CinemaBlend that he was set to “announced a couple surprising things” in the near future regarding his partnership with Netflix, and here we are, getting another movie from Guillermo del Toro! The writer/director also recently worked with Netflix on his horror series packed with WTF moments, The Cabinet of Curiosities.
Kazuo Ishiguro’s work has been adapted for the screen before, notably with the 2010 film, Never Let Me Go, based on the 2005 dystopian sci-fi novel of the same name. The movie starred Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley and Andrew Garfield. Before that, Ishiguro’s 1988 novel, The Remains of the Day, was also adapted into a 1993 movie starring Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, Christopher Reeve and Hugh Grant.
The Buried Giant is right down del Toro’s alley considering the filmmaker loves fantasy so deeply and has often explored the genre in his work. The novel was nominated for a World Fantasy Award for best novel back in 2016. Guillermo del Toro will have a hand in writing the script alongside Dennis Kelly, who also penned the 2014 submarine disaster film Black Sea, along with Netflix’s recent Matilda the Musical movie.
Guillermo del Toro put together an incredible cast for Pinocchio, which included Ewan McGregor, Cate Blanchett, Christoph Waltz and Tilda Swinton, so chances are the cast of The Buried Giant is going to be rather stellar too. Given del Toro’s track record for incredible movies over the years, including his many award nominations, we’re putting this on our watch list immediately!
