Once again, the master returns to practice his craft.
During a pre-Oscars interview for The Red Turtle, Studio Ghibli co-founder Toshio Suzuki confirmed that Hayao Miyazaki is working on a new theatrical film.
Yes, that Hayao Miyazaki.
According to a report by news agency Kyodo News, Miyazaki is currently doing prep work on a new feature film. Suzuki noted that, “[r]ight now in Tokyo, he’s putting all his effort into making it [the feature].” Suzuki will produce the movie. The current goal is to have Miyazaki’s film in theaters before the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
In November, we reported that Miyazaki expressed a desire to return to movie production. In NHK special Owaranai Hito Miyazaki Hayao (The Man Who Is Not Done: Hayao Miyazaki), it was revealed that Miyazaki was working on a CGI short for the Studio Ghibli museum titled Kemushi no Boro (Boro the Caterpillar). He wasn’t satisfied with the format, though, and presented a project proposal for a feature-length film in August.
At the time, the film hadn’t yet been greenlit, though Miyazaki had already gone to work on the project.
Miyazaki commented on the matter, stating that if the feature would take five years to make, he’d be 80 by the end of production. Though Miyazaki retired from feature films after 2013’s The Wind Rises, he continued to work as a director. Kemushi no Boro was originally slated for a 2017 release. Miyazaki has been planning the story to the feature for nearly two decades, and describes it as “a story of a tiny, hairy caterpillar, so tiny that it may be easily squished between your fingers.”
Source: Kyodo News
