EXCLUSIVE: Hot on the heels of a Best Animated Feature nomination for Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, Netflix is back in business with del Toro on another major animated film that he will direct.
Del Toro will adapt The Buried Giant, based on the fantasy novel by Nobel Prize-winning British writer Kazuo Ishiguro. The novel follows an elderly Briton couple, Axl and Beatrice, living in a fictional post-Arthurian England in which no one is able to retain long-term memories.
Del Toro will produce as well as direct, and is co-writing the script with Matilda the Musical scribe Dennis Kelly.
As on Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, ShadowMachine's stop motion studio will serve as the production's home base.
Netflix Film Chairman Scott Stuber sparked to setting another big animated film by del Toro, who won the Best Picture and Best Director Oscars for The Shape of Water, and is now in the center of the Oscar action for the brilliant Pinocchio, which he directed with Mark Gustafson.
"Guillermo del Toro is a visionary filmmaker and master of his craft," Stuber said. "We couldn't be more proud of the prestigious recognition for his Pinocchio, and we're pleased to continue our creative partnership as he develops his next project with Netflix."
Said del Toro: "The Buried Giant continues my animation partnership with Netflix and our pursuit of stop-motion as a medium to tell complex stories and build limitless worlds. It is a great honor and greater 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's Pinocchio spent a month near the top of Netflix's global film standings, and had more than 50 million views in its first 28 days. Pic just won the BAFTA for Best Animated Feature along with a slew of other awards, and he is nominated by the PGA for Outstanding Producer of Animated Theatrical Motion Picture this weekend.
The filmmaker is repped by WME and Exile Entertainment.
