Benigni Draws Parallels Between Bible and Pinocchio

June 27 -- Who better to make a movie about Pinocchio, the toy boy with a big heart, than manic human windup doll Roberto Benigni?

Despite the preponderance of film and TV projects about the wooden boy who wants to be human — including the new Steven Spielberg film, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, which draws heavily upon the time-honored fairy tale — the star and director of the Oscar-winning tearjerker Life Is Beautiful began work on a new version of the tale on Monday.

Budgeted at $45 million, according to Variety, it's said to be Italy's most expensively budgeted film to date and will be distributed by Miramax for the 2002 end-of-year Oscar season.

How will Benigni's version be different than those that have gone before? The shock-haired director reportedly told the bishop who blessed the set, "I have found many analogies between Pinocchio and the Bible. I have used some inspiration from Life Is Beautiful to teach religion; I hope I'll be able to do the same with Pinocchio." And a little child shall lead them?

Besides directing, Benigni will play the title role (surely the first time Pinocchio's been portrayed as a balding 40-something), and the actor's wife, Nicoletta Braschi, will play the Blue Fairy who holds the power to make him a real-live boy … er, man, er … boy, right?

Reuters/Variety contributed to this story.