Guillermo del Toro lets the puppets dance: Star director plans new fantasy animated film for Netflix

• Guillermo del Toro has his next big project on the line.
• The director, who has won several Oscars, is to film the next great fantasy story for Netflix.
• Del Toro is making a stop-motion animated film based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel The Buried Giant.

What if you barely remembered your past and your family became strangers? That’s exactly what happens in Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel The Buried Giant. Now his story is set to be adapted for Netflix by Guillermo del Toro.

After the huge success of his stop-motion animated film “Guillermo del Toros Pinocchio”, Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro has now secured the next big fantasy saga for Netflix. Like “Pinocchio”, “The Buried Giant” will again be animated with puppets.

“The Buried Giant” continues my partnership with Netflix and our quest to create complex stories and boundless worlds with stop motion. It is a great honor and responsibility for me to direct this screenplay, which Dennis Kelly and I are adapting from Kazuo Ishiguro’s profound and imaginative novel.

Guillermo del Toro to US magazine Deadline

The new flick will be produced by the same studio that del Toro previously worked with on the Oscar-nominated Pinocchio. He is supported by “Roald Dahl’s Matilda – The Musical” author Dennis Kelly.

Ishiguro’s “The Buried Giant” is about an elderly couple living in a small British village where the residents are slowly losing their memories. Axl and Beatrice decide to leave the village and seek out their son, whom they can hardly remember. During their journey they experience numerous adventures and meet new and courageous companions.

It is not yet known when the film will come to the streaming service. However, stop-motion films are extremely complex and can easily take several years to produce. Del Toro and his team worked on “Guillermo del Toros Pinocchio” for almost 15 years.

However, the long time paid off. The film spent several weeks in the Netflix top 10 and was showered with awards. This also includes the nominations for three Golden Globes and the nomination for the Oscar for best animated feature film.