I don’t know what it is, but for some reason, Robert Downey Jr. has made it a life goal to play Gepetto in a PINOCCHIO movie, and has been running through potential directors for years. First, he went the obvious route and went for Tim Burton, then he tried to make it with his TROPIC THUNDER buddy Ben Stiller, and this past summer, none other than Paul Thomas Anderson was rumored for the job. Clearly, they all passed (it would ostensibly be Downey running the show, which could’ve been a factor), and now, the latest rumor has Ron Howard attached to the Warner Bros. project.
Surprisingly, Howard has never worked with Downey before, not even as a producer, but his experience with four-quadrant, family-friendly films makes him almost as obvious a choice as Burton. His last venture into the world of the surreal, HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS, was, at the very least, incredibly impressive on a technical level, and the last time I was at Universal a few months ago, they were still showing off the eye-popping production design from that film. I would love to see his take on the inside of the whale, or Pleasure Island, or even Gepetto’s workshop.
Not only are they tweaking the forumla by focusing on Gepetto, rather than Pinocchio, the WB project won’t have access to the original’s songs (or Jiminy Cricket, a character ostensibly created by Disney), but if Downey’s this determined to get it off the ground, there’s gotta be something to it, right? Right???
For his sake, I hope Howard officially signs, and gets this movie off the ground after years and years of development. Maybe it’ll even be really, really good.
