ROME: While intergalactic warriors and web-spinning superstars may be the stuff of heroes in other countries, in Italy a long-nosed wooden puppet called Pinocchio still holds centre stage.

Oscar-winning Roberto Benigni - director and star of "Life is Beautiful" - has breathed fresh life into one of Italy's most traditional and beloved characters with a new film based on the classic 19th century tale.

Although Benigni has refused to reveal any details about the upcoming movie, Italy is already abuzz with anticipation.

Sales of hand-made wooden Pinocchio dolls are soaring and modern merchandise, including baseball caps and backpacks featuring the mischievous liar, is disappearing from toy shop shelves.

A kiddie park in Tuscany has been dubbed Pinocchioland in expectation of a surge in interest, and publishers have reissued "The Adventures of Pinocchio," Carlo Collodi's original 1883 best-seller about a naughty puppet in search of boyhood.

"Italy has older traditions, a culture of artisans and country living, so it's natural that our hero is Pinocchio," said Giorgio De Rienzo, a literary critic for Corriere della Sera newspaper and self-described Pinocchio-ologist.

In the classic fable, the elderly Gepetto carves a puppet from a mysterious piece of wood. Pinocchio, an endearing mischief-maker whose nose grows every time he tells a lie, comes to life but aches to become a real boy.

His adventures on the way to learning honesty and bravery are peopled by a talking cricket, a blue fairy, an evil puppeteer and a giant fish - figures who have all become popular characters in Italian folklore.

"Pinocchio is about freedom and is the kind of story that can continually transform itself and be adapted," De Rienzo said.

The new Pinocchio movie is due to hit cinemas across Italy on October 11. The film industry is already betting it will be the most popular movie ever in Italy, bumping off the previous record-holder, Benigni's own "Life is Beautiful."

That shouldn't be surprising considering Pinocchio is the most widely read book in Italian history and perhaps the most-read children's book around the world, Italian critics say.

"Italian movies aren't usually blockbusters even in Italy, but there are exceptions," said Andrea Lazzarin, marketing director for Medusa Film, distributor for the film in Italy. "Both Pinocchio and Benigni are cultural heritages in Italy. Together, they're just too appealing."

Benigni, Italy's most beloved comic actor and director, won Oscars in 1999 for best foreign film and best actor with his tragi-comic story about the Holocaust, "Life is Beautiful."

He has sworn the entire cast to secrecy until the film is released. But before shooting started, he said he wanted to "make a big film from a small idea" with Pinocchio.

Unlike Walt Disney's 1940s animated version, real actors will star in Benigni's film, and the director himself will play the long-nosed wooden puppet.

Most of the US$35-million Miramax production, Italy's most expensive film to date, was shot in the village of Pignone, north of Tuscany where Collodi, born Carlo Lorenzini, was brought up by his chef father and house servant mother.

Pinocchio the chameleon

The film is just the latest in a string of Pinocchio adaptations.

A silent, black and white Italian "Pinocchio" was made in 1911, followed by Disney's animated version in 1940 as well as a series of made-for-TV films, one of them starring Mickey Rooney.

Italian director Luigi Comencini made a popular movie based on the book in 1972, and Pinocchio was even turned into a porn flick, called "The Erotic Adventures of Pinocchio" with the subtitle: "It's Not His Nose That Grows."

Collodi's book has also proved to be something of a chameleon. Walt Disney turned him into the star of a sweet, growing-up morality tale, while in Russian translations, Pinocchio was portrayed as an organizer of a puppet co-operative.

Even before Benigni's film comes out, a musical play is being prepared, and Italian feminist writer Vittoria Haziel is putting the finishing touches on a book called "Pinocchia."

However, the growing Pinocchio-hype unleashed by the Benigni film is alarming some diehard local fans.

"Pinocchio is known all over the world, but here we really consider him Italian," said Gianpaolo Galli, a craftsman at the Trad. Eco co-operative that sells wooden Pinocchio dolls in central Rome. "The only thing that worries me about all of this is that what has been a symbol of tradition for so long in Italy is turning into something trendy."

Agencies via Xinhua