Warner Brothers is currently developing a live-action version of the beloved fable Pinocchio, which tells the story of a wooden puppet whose nose grows when he tells a lie and who wishes nothing more than to be a real live boy. The script has already been completed by Bryan Fuller, who has previously written and produced episodes of Star Trek: Voyager, Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies, and Heroes, but has no feature film experience as of yet.

Now the project is getting some serious attention from top-tier talents. It’s being reported that Tim Burton is very interested in directing the movie, and that none other than Robert Downey Jr. is his top choice to play Geppetto.

Legends: The Enchanted #0
Written and illustrated by Nick Percival
Letters by Richard Starking & Comicraft’s Jimmy Betancourt
Radical Publishing
28 pages; full-color
Price $1; Release date: February 3, 2010

When giants lay siege on the town of Krakenfield, the townsfolk need a hero and the drifter Jack is just their man. Jack knows a thing or two about killing giants, even though the gigs are getting tiresome for him. On the edge of the Bionic Woods, a bound and imprisoned Pinocchio suffers at the hands of a hag threatening to kill the puppet at the behest of a squire. Days later in those same woods, a mysterious young women caped and hooded all in red carrying a basket, collecting something important is attacked by a pack of wolves.

Something about this tale sounds familiar, yes? That’s because the characters are made up of classic fairy tale legends. But before you dismiss this as a child’s bedtime story, let me stress that Legends: The Enchanted is graphically violent with art that looks like Todd McFarlane’s Twisted Fairy Tales figures meets H.R. Giger in a Clive Barker horror story.

As we all know, Guillermo del Toro has enough projects lined up to last him the rest of his life. You’d think that this would stop him from adding more, but now it looks like he’ll have his hand in another project; this one will be a feature-length stop-motion version of the cherished tale of Pinocchio based on a book illustrated by Gris Grimly.

This version of the tale — whose main character gained popularity with U.S. audiences thanks to Disney’s animated version in 1940 — would be brought to life by the puppets created by the Jim Henson Company, or at least that’s what Del Toro’s is working on having.