Guillermo Del Toro's Stop Motion Follow Up To Pinocchio Will Be Kazuo Ishigiro's The Buried Giant

Guillermo del Toro has been a fan and a champion of animation his entire career — he was originally going to be an animator until fate intervened. He has been involved in multiple animated projects, producing and consulting on projects like the first "Puss in Boots," and "Rise of the Guardians," as well as creating his own animated TV and film universe with "Tales of Arcadia."

Then there's "Pinocchio," or more accurately, "Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio." This is a passion project 15 years in the making which was not only a critical hit but proved popular with Netflix audiences and is also nominated for an Academy Award. Granted, it's not hard to see why the film is so popular, as it looks stunningly gorgeous, has fantastic sound design, exquisite stop-motion animation, and one of the most profound and emotional scripts of last year, with an ending that doesn't leave a dry eye in the audience, while still finding time to terrify them. 

It looks like del Toro got bit by the animation bug because he is not stopping with "Pinocchio." There were already talks about possibly reviving "At The Mountains Of Madness" as a stop-motion film (with maestro Phil Tippett). In the meantime, del Toro has announced his follow-up to "Pinocchio," which is actually an old project, and it sounds incredible.

Speaking in an interview with The Telegraph, del Toro revealed he is already working on a new stop-motion animated film: an adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's "The Buried Giant." To co-write the script, del Toro has tapped "Matilda: The Musical" scribe Dennis Kelly.

"We start the design process in two months," teased del Toro, who also said he chose the project in order to keep pushing the medium of animation. "Animation has given us so many indelible images over the years, but in many ways the industry wants to keep it at the children's table. So I want to keep pushing the medium into areas that demonstrate its capacity."

Now, for the uninitiated, "The Buried Giant" is a 2015 novel that follows an elderly couple living in post-Arthurian Britain. They set out to visit their son, whom they haven't seen in years. The problem is that mass amnesia spreads through the land and the couple can't remember much about their son, so they venture out with a Saxon warrior, his orphan charge, and an illustrious knight in order to find their missing son, while they all slowly begin to remember their dark and troubled shared past.

This not only sounds incredible but a bit familiar, too. That's because "The Buried Giant" was named as part of an (unfortunately) long list of unmade projects by del Toro, which also included "Justice League Dark," "Fantastic Voyage," "The Count of Monte Cristo," and much, much more.

Hopefully, the success of "Pinocchio" means del Toro is able to use some of his old ideas and breathe new life into them in either animation or live-action. After all, it worked with "Pinocchio" itself.