Everything (We Think) We Know About Miyazaki's New Film

Over the past few days, a number of general film, entertainment, or geek sites have run stories with Headlines such as "Hayao Miyazaki Comes Out Of Retirement" or "Studio Ghibli Reopens". This isn't exactly news to regular readers of this site, as we first reported on Miyazaki's plans for a new film back in November. Not only that but reports of Ghibli's end had been exaggerated, as we have argued for some time. Although there had not been a film in production since the release of When Marnie Was There, the Studio continued to work on shorts and commercials and was involved in the international co-production The Red Turtle.

However, because there seems to be a number of misunderstandings and inaccurate information flying around, we thought it'd be a good idea to try and sum up what we do know (or at least we think we do). We're not claiming to be the ultimate authority on the subject or anything but here's what we think we know so far:


• Hayao Miyazaki has been working on an animated short Boro The Caterpillar for screening at The Ghibli Museum. It will be his first work made in CG, and he has collaborated with CG animation specialist Yuhei Sakuragi. It was intended to screen from this July but has since been delayed.
• The Japanese TV documentary The Man Who Is Not Done (broadcast in November 2016) revealed that Miyazaki had grown dissatisfied working only on the short and had devised the idea for a brand new (hand-drawn) animated feature and begun to work on it (despite not having the official green-light).
• In an interview in February, Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki confirmed the new project and also confirmed he would be producer on the project.
•  Work began on film in July 2016. Miyazaki had produced the first storyboards for the project by the end of 2016
•  From May to August 2017 Studio Ghibli began accepting applications for in-betweeners and background artists on the film.
•  Miyazaki has expressed a desire to complete the film in 2019, so it could be released in 2020 for the Tokyo Olympics. Suzuki has since called this impossible.
•  The title and storyline of the new film have not been announced. Despite what is being reported elsewhere it has never been announced as a feature-length version of Boro The Caterpillar. While it's still possible that it is Boro, we'd have to consider it very unlikely.

So..  there we have it. There's not a whole lot of information out there, but a new Miyazaki film is happening, and that's enough reason to be excited by itself! What do you hope for from his new film? Let us know in the comments or via our usual Social Media channels!