Aside from a certain trailer, yesterday's Disney Investor Day was a damp squib in terms of new movie or TV announcement/fun stuff. Yet amidst all the wrangling over the company's political contributions and lacklustre LGBTQ+ defence, there was one other nugget to emerge in the shape of the first image from Robert Zemeckis' Pinocchio, which stars Tom Hanks as Geppetto.
Even with the Mouse House's drive to turn its entire animated back catalogue into live-action (with in this case, some CG assistance), Pinocchio feels like a risk given how many times this story has been brought to screen and the Oscar-winning Disney original.
With Zemeckis co-writing alongside Chris Weitz, the story is expected to follow the usual Pinocchio path, about a wooden puppet crafted by woodcarver Geppetto who dreams of being a real boy and sets off on a quest to achieve his aim.
The likes of Benjamin Evan Ainsworth (as the title character), Cynthia Erivo, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Keegan-Michael Key, Lorraine Bracco and Luke Evans are all in the cast for this, which should debut on Disney+ in September. Which gives it a head start against Guillermo del Toro's stop-motion version, [due on Netflix in December](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/ne