On January 23, 2017, Patrick McHale was announced to co-write the script with del Toro. On August 31, 2017, del Toro told IndieWire and at the 74th Venice International Film Festival that the film need a budget increase of $35 million more dollars or it would be cancelled. On November 8, 2017, he reported that the project was not happening, because no studios were willing to finance it. At one point, Matthew Robbins considered making the film as a 2D-animated film with French artist Joann Sfar to bring the costs down, but del Toro eventually decided that it had to be stop-motion, even if the higher budget made it harder get greenlighted. However, on October 22, 2018, it was announced that the film had been revived, with Netflix acquiring it.