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Guillermo del Toro fans had to wait four years in between his best picture winner “The Shape of Water” and his newest release “Nightmare Alley.” The wait for his next project won’t be as long. Netflix has announced the director’s stop-motion, musical adaptation of “Pinocchio” is set for release in December 2022. Del Toro co-directs this long-in-the-works passion project with Mark Gustafson. To mark the date announcement, Netflix unveiled a brief teaser with the first footage of Ewan McGregor voicing Cricket.

Starring opposite McGregor in “Pinocchio” is David Bradley as Geppetto, Gregory Mann as Pinocchio, Finn Wolfhard, Cate Blanchett, John Turturro, Ron Perlman, Tim Blake Nelson, Burn Gorman, Christoph Waltz and Tilda Swinton. Del Toro’s adaptation is set in Italy during the 1930s, a time when fascism is on the rise and Benito Mussolini is consolidating control of the country.

“No art form has influenced my life and my work more than animation and no single character in history has had as deep of a personal connection to me as Pinocchio,” del Toro said in a statement when the film was greenlit in 2018. “In our story, Pinocchio is an innocent soul with an uncaring father who gets lost in a world he cannot comprehend. He embarks on an extraordinary journey that leaves him with a deep understanding of his father and the real world. I’ve wanted to make this movie for as long as I can remember.”

“Pinocchio” is del Toro’s first feature directorial effort for Netflix, which continues to draw some of the world’s top filmmaking talent. The streaming giant and del Toro already have a relationship as the director produced Netflix’s Emmy award-winning television series “Trollhunters” and more. Alexandre Desplat, who won an Oscar for scoring del Toro’s “The Shape of Water,” is handling the music for “Pinocchio.”

Watch the first teaser trailer for Guillermo del Toro’s “Pinocchio” in the video below.