The Adventures of Pinocchio (1996 film) Pinocchio. They approached Disney with this idea, but Disney turned down the project. Years later, producer Lawrence Mortorff President of Kushner Locke sent Barron a script for a film based on the Carlo Collodi novel. The project then finally got off the ground. It was shot in Croatia, Prague, Český Krumlov, and High Force. For the character of Pinocchio, a complex animatronic puppet created by Jim Henson's Creature Shop was used with stop-motion. Pepe, the talking cricket, is computer-animated. One of the biggest changes in the filming was replacing Wallace Shawn, with David Doyle as the voice of Pepe the
Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night and James Earl Jones, but felt the plot was mostly "Saturday-morning rehash" and also urged readers to watch the Disney movie instead. "The Morning Call"'s reviewer was more favorable, opining that "it does dazzle and sparkle in all the right places", adding "there is much to recommend the new film". M. J. Simpson praised the "engaging story, likeable characters... genuine tension and horror, reasonable songs and... terrific animation" and gave it a B+ rating. "Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night" was described as a "thinly veiled sequel" to Disney's 1940 classic "Pinocchio"; one reviewer noted its many similarities to