What's the Difference?

The Adventures of Pinocchio is the MOST adapted children’s story of all time, with 3 screen adaptations in 2022 alone. Guillermo del Toro is the latest filmmaker to take on the tried and true coming of age story about a puppet who longs to be a real boy, but what is it about the 19th century folk tale that keeps creatives coming back for more? Looking at the original text, the 1940 Disney animated classic and GDT’s recent stop motion version for Netflix (where he literally brings a puppet to life), it’s time to ask, What’s the Difference?

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have made such a home in our collective pop culture consciousness that it’s nearly impossible to imagine teenagers, mutants, ninjas or turtles without thinking about the heroes in a half shell. It’s also wild to see just how different the colorful Saturday morning adaptation of the Turtles was from their black and white, Daredevil inspired comic book origins. So let’s figure out if we’re party dudes or if we do machines and how loud we’re willing to yell Cowabunga because it’s time to ask What’s the Difference, dude! Before the TMNT boys got super into pizza, they were a gritty pastiche of Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird favorites like Daredevil, Frank Miller and some Mutant tales from Marvel. The 1990 film adaptation was the team’s first big screen adventure and has proven to be far from their last with Mutant Mayhem being the 8th feature length version. Here’s hoping we’re in for a few more decades of Pizza Wagon toys!

Before slashers properly took off with Michael Meyers, or the first xenomorph burst onto the scene or Jaws made it unsafe to go in the water, the 70s gave us a truly iconic horror film with The Exorcist. Written by William Peter Blatty, adapted from his own novel, and directed by William Friedkin, the film about a young girl possessed by a demon had audiences swooning and tossing up their pea soup. But the story of The Exorcist’s journey to the screen is one of a push and pull between Blatty and Friedkin. How happy could the ending have been? How subtle could the motives of the demon have been? And just how wildly different could the director’s cut be with only 11 additional minutes added? While we’re at it, the power of Christ compels us to also ask… What’s the Difference?