For some godforsaken reason, pop culture is currently in the midst of a Pinocchio epidemic. Left and right, up and down, Pinocchio is everywhere. Disney dumped out their live-action remake of Pinocchio earlier this year, a drab, mostly beat-for-beat remake, apart from the addition of pop culture references and Disney+ advertising. Then, over from Russia, we have the infamous Pinocchio: A True Story, a very-fictional animated film starring Pauly Shore, which is almost certainly a front for a mafia money-laundering scheme. And, finally, in the world of gaming, we have Lies of P, a grim-and-gritty reimagining of Pinocchio as a magical steampunk Blade Runner, where Pinocchio himself resembles a cybernetically-enhanced Timothée Chalamet. It’s a little unfair to lump that last one in with the others, but regardless, Pinocchio has become an icon of unoriginality, a soulless husk puppeteered by corporate forces looking to make an easy profit off name-recognition. But just as it seemed that there was no integrity left, out has emerged Guillermo del Toro to grant the character life once again.
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