Gris Grimly’s certainly one of the most exciting illustrators in the world of horror today.  His Wicked Nursery Rhymes and Creature Carnival have displayed a vision, a grit and a wit that’s all too rare in the world of macabre fiction.  And his adaptation of Carlo Collodi’s classic fairytale Pinocchio has recently been picked up for a film adapt by the one and only Guillermo Del Toro – any true modern horror fan’s wet dream.  We had the chance to talk with Mr. Grimly about his stop-motion take on Pinocchio (his feature-film directorial debut) and what it’s like to work with both Del Toro and the Jim Henson Company.

So how did the Pinocchio film project come about?

Um… it kind of just started developing. After the book [was published], I got a call from this gallery, the Van Eaton gallery – which sells a lot of my artwork.  At this time they were selling Pinocchio artwork from the book.  So I guess Guillermo went in there, and I guess loved a lot of the artwork and bought a couple of the pieces.  I don’t remember if he wanted to meet me or if I called the gallery and told them that I wanted to meet him, because at the time period we were bouncing around ideas about who could direct this movie, and I think all of us agreed on Guillermo Del Toro, because he’s into horror and he’s got that horror edge, but he’s also into animation and loves comic book art and appreciates artwork.  So the fact that the gallery called me a couple weeks later and told me that Guillermo had bought the artwork – I mean the coincidence was a little bit too much.  I got a meeting with him – and this was ages ago.  I think he was still working on the first Hellboy during this.  So we went to lunch and I told him my idea.  I said, “Y’know, I wanna do a stop-motion Pinnochio, I want it to be for young adults and older – not really for kids but not really a hardcore horror film either.”  Some of my influences in stop motion are Jan Svankmajer and the Quay Brothers and a lot of European animators and animation from Prague.  I told him that that would be the look.  It would be a really dark, gritty, rough, stop-motion version of Pinocchio with a lot of the horrific environments that Pinocchio goes through in the book, even accentuating it a little bit more.  But I asked him during that meeting if he wanted to direct it, and he said that he couldn’t but he loved the idea and that he would love to produce it.  And shortly after that – maybe 6 months to a year – I got a call from the Jim Henson Company and I went in there and they pulled out a copy of Pinocchio and they said, “What do you think about doing a stop-motion version of Pinocchio?”  I said, “You gotta be kidding me!” [Laughs.]  So it was just way too weird, the coincidences coming together like that.  I said, “You know we’ve been toying around with it, I just got done talking with Guillermo about it.  He’s interested in producing.”  They were like, “Oh my God, we’d love to work with Guillermo!”  So they ended up contacting his management and then after about a year and a half we finally settled on a development deal with Jim Henson.  I’m co-directing it with another director [Adam Parrish King] who is an amazing stop-motion animator, he did The Wraith of Cobble Hill – it’s got kind of a European look and feel to it, very dark and gritty.  Perfect for what I’m looking for.  We get along great, we’ve got the same sense of humor.  It’s funny, because I think sometimes we’re the only two people in the world who will think something’s funny.  We’re working with the writer and we’ll go off on a tangent, laughing our asses off, and the writer’s kind of like “Okay… I don’t really get it but I’ll play around with this idea."

So the script is still being written?

Yeah, we’re still working on the script.  I mean that’s pretty much all I can say – how we’ve gotten to where we are.  I don’t know where or how the script’s gonna go.  I’m really happy about where it’s headed.  Again, it’s so premature I don’t really wanna talk about it.

Has the Henson Company set a year for the release yet?

No.  I think Guillermo said in an interview, “Even if we started today, we wouldn’t be done for three years.”  That doesn’t mean it’s gonna be coming out in 2011.  That means we haven’t even started production on it yet.  It could be another six months from now, and then from there it could be three years.  Still got a ways to go.  The good thing is we’re seeing everything come together and, like I said, it’s been a long haul but the ball keeps moving and more things start to align.  It looks really good and promising and ever since Guillermo announced it… It’s been a real good thing because things have really started moving along.

There really hasn’t been a definitive Pinocchio in the horrific sense, the way Svankmajer did Alice in Wonderland…

Yeah, y’know the book is like a lot of the 18th/19th century feel for fairytales.  I mean Grimm’s or Alice in Wonderland or even Wizard of Oz is lighter than Pinocchio.  There’s some really dark elements in Pinocchio, and one of our goals with this is to really embrace that darker side of the story.  There hasn’t been a Pinocchio adaptation that reflects the book’s true nature, and that’s our goal – even giving it a little more of a style and even a darker feel.

Do you think it’ll be tough to get that darkness into a mainstream feature?  How much of a battle do you foresee yourself having?

Umm… so far I think some of most disturbing stuff has come from Lisa Henson.  [Laughs.]  I think it’s gonna be the darkest thing that Henson has put out.  But Henson has put out a lot of dark stuff.  I mean The Dark Crystal is a very moody and dark film – you see all of these creatures getting their life sucked out of them.  It’s still maybe not as dark as Svankmajer but… I don’t know.  I think we’re just trying to be really true to our vision and release what we think would be a great film, and you can’t do anything more than that.  I think if you’re true to yourself then you’ll have the audience.  I think the problem is that when people aren’t being true, and they try to make something that’s not supposed to be, then it just doesn’t come together.