Legendary animation director Hayao Miyazaki may possibly make a return to feature films, three years after announcing his retirement. While talking about his newest short film, 'Kemushi no Boro' (Boro the Caterpillar) the 75 year old expressed interest in adapting it for feature length production. In the interview for the NHK special, Owaranai Hito Miyazaki Hayao (The Man Who Is Not Done: Hayao Miyazaki), he said that he had shared a proposal with Ghibli producer and colleague Toshio Suzuki. Miyazaki then joked that, 'I haven’t said anything to my wife yet'.
Miyazaki 'retired' in 2013
The anime icon is no stranger to making a comeback. Previously, Miyazaki said that the 2013 World War II biopic, 'The Wind Rises', would be his final film, and before that, 'Princess Mononoke' in 1997. Miyazaki has been working since the 1960s, rising from storyboard artist to director, cutting his teeth on television anime like 'Sherlock Hound', 'Future Boy Conan' and the highly popular 'Lupin III' series, before directing a feature version of the latter, 'The Castle of Cagliostro' (1979). Afterwards, he made his first original film, 'Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind' (1984), followed by 'Castle In The Sky' (1986). He won an Oscar for 'Spirited Away' (2001), the first anime to do so, and was given an Honorary Academy Award in 2014.
Miyazaki will be 80 by the film's completion
Despite not officially getting a green light, Miyazaki decided to begin making storyboards for the film, with a release date possibly being aimed for 2019, before the opening of the Tokyo Olympics the following year. Since his previous retirement, Miyazaki has promised to make three short films, in conjunction with Ghibli, for the Studio Ghibli Museum in Tokyo.
Ghibli itself announced it was be on a hiatus back in 2014, due to concerns about the company's future and structure, though it has backed other animated projects. Most recently, Ghibli teamed with Wild Bunch for the Michael Dudok de Wit animated film 'The Red Turtle', which premiered at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.
