Guillermo del Toro Teases ‘The Buried Giant’ as “A Fascinatingly Difficult Stop-Motion Movie For Adults”

I’m a big fan of stop-motion. Can’t get enough of it, in fact. I grew up on the classic Ray Harryhausen films like Clash of the Titans, falling in love with the stop-motion creatures roaming across screen. Studio Lakia specializes in the animation-style, delivering wonders like Coraline and Paranorman. These are not just films for kids. So, I believe it when Guillermo del Toro says his upcoming stop-motion movie, The Buried Giant, is very much for adults.

According to Deadline, the beloved filmmaker was awarded a BFI Fellowship earlier this week in London. He participated in a conversation with historian Jason Wood, where he was asked about The Buried Giant. The filmmaker described the project as a, “fascinatingly difficult stop-motion movie for adults” that is being produced “without any concession to a family audience.”

Added del Toro, “If you do a live action Pinocchio and all of a sudden a puppet walks through it becomes uncanny valley, which is a horrible thing that doesn’t belong in the same world. Just like 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.”

“I want all the creatures to be of the same material. It’s gonna take us years. And it’s incredibly difficult.”

Not only do I agree with del Toro, but I love his thinking. He’s long been an advocate for not simply thinking of animated movies as their own genre, but rather, a variety of genres told in a variety of styles. With The Buried Giant, it sounds like he’ll be delivering an adult story that may or may not lean into horror, but certainly won’t be just for kids. Either way, there will be monsters, which has me excited.

Based on the 2015 novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, The Buried Giant, “follows an elderly British couple, Axl and Beatrice, living in a fictional post-Arthurian England in which no one is able to retain long-term memories.”

Del Toro adapted the novel alongside Matilda the Musical writer Dennis Kelly.

The filmmaker also noted that longtime collaborator will be involved in some capacity, having worked with del Toro since his debut feature, .