Order has been restored. Studio Ghibli co-founder and director Hayao Miyazaki has announced that he is coming out of retirement to direct one final film.
The celebrated filmmaker has made many attempts over the years to retire, but perhaps it’s hard to keep someone from doing what they really love.
Over the weekend, Miyazaki announced during NHK’s “Owaranai Hito Miyazaki Hayao or Hayao Miyazaki – The Man Who Isn’t Finished” television special that he wants to come out of retirement for one final project.
Said to be his first and last attempt at CG animation, the project is titled, “Boro the Caterpillar” (Kemushi no Boro), which was intended to be a short to be shown at Tokyo’s Studio Ghibli museum. He described it as “a story of a tiny, hairy caterpillar, so tiny that it may be easily squished between your fingers”. However, unsatisfied with the limitations of a short, Miyazaki now wants to turn it into a feature-length film.
The project is a collaboration with longtime producer and current head of Studio Ghibli, Toshio Suzuki. Suzuki joked that Miyazaki will be “drawing storyboards until he dies” but also confessed that Miyazaki was struggling to adapt to the techniques of CG animation after a lifetime of hand-drawn films. Miyazaki said that “Boro the Caterpillar” could take him up to 5 years to produce, making the animator 80 years old once it’s released. But, if he sticks to his ideal timetable, it would be finished before the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, which would be perfect timing.
We can’t wait 😉
Meanwhile, Miyazaki will continue making CG shorts for the Ghibli Museum and “Kemushi no Boro” (the short) should be finished in a year.
Sources: DAZED, The Independent, Gizmodo / Featured image: artnet.
