“No Concessions to Families”: Guillermo del Toro Unveils Bold Vision for ‘The Buried Giant’ at BFI

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Fresh off being awarded a prestigious BFI Fellowship, Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro has shared new, uncompromising details about his next stop-motion project, The Buried Giant. Speaking at a Q&A at the BFI Southbank in London on May 8, 2026, del Toro made it clear that this film is not a follow-up to the family-friendly whimsy of Pinocchio, but rather a “fascinatingly difficult” movie specifically for adults.

A Cohesive World of Magic and Mist

Based on the 2015 novel by Nobel Prize-winner Kazuo Ishiguro, the film is set in a post-Arthurian Britain where a strange mist has caused mass amnesia. The story follows an elderly couple, Axl and Beatrice, as they travel across a landscape inhabited by trolls and pixies to find a son they can barely remember.

Del Toro explained that his decision to use stop-motion was born from a desire to avoid the “uncanny valley” of live-action CGI.

“If you do a live-action movie about an old couple crossing a landscape full of trolls and fairies… and there are special effects and actors, it doesn’t belong in the same world. I want all the creatures to be of the same material.”

By using stop-motion, del Toro ensures that the mythical and the mundane are texturally identical, creating a unified, immersive atmosphere.

The Creative Powerhouse

The film is set up at Netflix and sees del Toro reuniting with several key collaborators from his Academy Award-winning Pinocchio:

  • Screenplay: Co-written by del Toro and Dennis Kelly (Matilda the Musical).

  • Studio: ShadowMachine, the production house behind Pinocchio and BoJack Horseman, will handle the animation.

  • Cast: Long-time collaborator Ron Perlman has been confirmed for a role, marking his latest project with the director since their work on Cronos, Hellboy, and Pinocchio.

A “Difficult” Road Ahead

Del Toro warned fans that the production will be a slow burn, noting that it will “take years” to complete due to the complexity of the adult-oriented themes and the meticulous nature of the animation. He emphasized that the film will be made “without any concession to a family audience,” leaning into the dark, melancholic, and philosophical nature of Ishiguro’s source material.

With The Buried Giant, del Toro continues his mission to prove that animation is a medium for all stories—not just a genre for children—positioning this project as one of the most ambitious adult animated features in recent memory.

About John Schwarz

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