A darker version of the story of a boy carved from wood who longs to be a real child is also in the works from filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, who will co-direct the stop-motion animated 3-D film. Del Toro, according to Deadline, co-wrote the screenplay with Matthew Robbins.

No other information about the Hedges version has been announced.

Several live-action versions of fairytales are currently in the works, including "Beauty and the Beast," "The Jungle Book" "Dumbo" and "Mulan."

The 1940 Disney film "Pinocchio," about the adventures of a wooden puppet whose nose grows each time he stretches the truth, featured such songs as "Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee (An Actor's Life for Me)," "No Strings on Me" and "When You Wish Upon a Star," sung by Pinocchio's sidekick Jiminy Cricket.

An Oscar nominee for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay for "About a Boy," Hedges is a former actor (he studied with Sanford Meisner and co-founded the original Edge Theatre with Mary-Louise Parker and Joe Mantello), playwright (productions include Imagining Brad, Good as New and Baby Anger), author ("What's Eating Gilbert Grape"), teacher (at Yale, Bennington and his alma mater, the North Carolina School of the Arts), and scenarist (he adapted "Gilbert Grape," penned "A Map of the World"). Hedges also wrote and directed "The Odd Life of Timothy Green," "Dan in Real Life" and "Pieces of April."