Robin Allan (University of Exeter, UK) wrote about this in his Walt Disney and Europe.

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He notes that Disney’s film and Collodi’s book did share a dark vision of a frightening world as their “central bleakness”. This notwithstanding, Collodi's story had been softened and simplified in subsequent versions, some of which circulated in the U.S. in the 1930s. Disney followed these bowdlerized versions more than the original.

Rebecca West (University of Chicago) summarizes Allen’s argument as follows: while Collodi's puppet has “a seemingly natural attraction to transgressive and delinquent behavior”, Disney modified the sadism and violence of the original tale “in order to bring to the screen a lovable, cuddly Pinocchio.”

Incidentally, professor West points to yet another aspect of Disney’s “ultimately unsuccessful Americanization” of this Old World tale – one that she finds “most disturbing”: 

in Disney's film … the greedy puppetmaster Stromboli is quite obviously portrayed as a Jewish gypsy, in spite of his stereotypically broad Italian accent.
[On the contrary,] Collodi's puppetmaster Mangiafuoco "seems a fearful man but deep down he isn't bad," nor does he have any sort of marked ethnic or racial identity.

In short, Disney’s Pinocchio is an “odd blend of its European origin and American elements”. And black-and-white morality, to come back to our original point, is one of its most “American”, and less “European” elements.

It was, after all, 1940: the U.S. were oiling a propaganda machine that would ultimately help to destroy “evil” in Europe – a machine to which Disney himself would give a tremendous contribution during World War II. Carlo Collodi, on the other hand, was a Florentine journalist who had served as a volunteer with the Tuscan army during Italy’s Risorgimento. His Pinocchio might be a work of "homiletic Victorian values," as Robin Allan says, but it belonged to a deeply different world.

It is curious to note that even the most vitriolic American critics of Roberto Benigni’s Pinocchio concede that the Italian actor caught Collodi’s spirit better than Disney. Film critic Phil Villarreal, for example, considers Benigni’s work a “monstrosity” and “a failure on all levels”. But he adds:

If there’s any redeeming quality, it’s that the script sticks close to the Carlo Collodi novel. This story isn’t as kid-friendly as the Disney animated classic. This time, Pinocchio isn’t so receptive to the advice of his cricket pal – the puppet attempts to bash the insect with a mallet. Multiple arrests and a prison sentence are also in store for the wily puppet. Woodcutter Gepetto [sic!], also shows the touch of a dark side. He speaks of ringing Pinocchio’s neck when he’s disobedient.

Perhaps it’s not just black-and-white morality that makes the American and Italian versions of Pinocchio so different. It’s also a matter of different perceptions of the underworld in which children and adolescents live: a dark and frightening world that the American media persistently depict in happy, bright colors.

Measured against this ampler background, Rambaldi’s intention to follow Benigni’s “Italian” approach rather than Disney’s “American” one, promises to give new, controversial life to Collodi’s complex, and immortal fairy-tale.