Writer hired for Tim Burton's Pinocchio movie, even though you could just imagine that movie already
We previously suggested that Warner Bros. could save untold millions in production costs by simply allowing audiences to imagine what Tim Burton's Pinocchio would be like, mostly by recalling Alice In Wonderland and mentally replacing their hilarious assumptions about Johnny Depp playing Geppetto with their equally obvious assumptions about how Robert Downey Jr. will do that. But as it turns out, pure imagination is incapable of producing billions of dollars in box-office receipts—which is why Warner Bros. is making another well-worn dark fairy tale with Tim Burton and Robert Downey Jr. in the first place. So the studio has now hired Kick-Ass and X-Men: First Class co-writer Jane Goldman to draft another take on a script originally turned in by Bryan Fuller, back when producer Dan Jinks first commissioned a film he said was "inspired by" Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland—and thus knowingly playing doubly into Tim Burton's sweet spot of only doing things that he doesn't have to come up with.
Burton's Pinocchio remains the second official Pinocchio film on track next to Guillermo del Toro's animated version, though Fox also has the Pinocchio "prequel" The Three Misfortunes Of Geppetto in the works. But of course, these other Pinocchio projects have neither Tim Burton nor Robert Downey Jr., and so it's nearly impossible to predict safely what they will be like well ahead of time, and therefore they won't be nearly as successful.