Hayao Miyazaki‘s highly anticipated film will be distributed in North America later this year, GKIDS has announced.
The producer and distributor of award-winning animation has announced the acquisition of Oscar winner Miyazaki’s first film in 10 years, since 2013’s “The Wind Rises.” Originally titled “How Do You Live?” in Japan, Miyazaki’s feature will be known as “The Boy and the Heron” in the U.S. and international markets.
Miyazaki is the co-founder of animation house Studio Ghibli. “The Boy and the Heron” is written and directed by Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli co-founder Toshio Suzuki. The film is an original story inspired by Yoshino Genzaburo’s 1937 story about a young boy who comes of age while living with his uncle after the death of his father. Miyazaki is dedicating the film to his own grandson.
Longtime collaborator Joe Hisaishi is behind the film’s score. GKIDS will release “The Boy and the Heron” theatrically in North America later this year. The all-rights deal marks a continuation of GKIDS’ long-standing relationship with Ghibli.
“Hayao Miyazaki is a living legend in filmmaking, as evidenced by his Academy Award win for ‘Spirited Away’ and his two Oscar nominations for ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’ and ‘The Wind Rises,’” GKIDS president David Jesteadt said. “It’s been 10 years since the world has seen a new film from Miyazaki-san, and GKIDS is so proud and honored to unveil his latest, highly anticipated masterpiece in North America.”
In an unprecedented marketing move, Studio Ghibli did not release any images, a trailer, advertisements, or a synopsis of the hand-drawn animated feature “The Boy and the Heron” ahead of its July 14 premiere in Japan. In keeping with this policy, GKIDS will not release any further details or marketing materials at this time.
GKIDS handles North American distribution for the famed Studio Ghibli library of films across all theatrical, home video, digital, and streaming platforms. The company has released Studio Ghibli’s most recent films in theaters nationwide, including the Academy Award-nominated “The Tale of The Princess Kaguya, ” the Academy Award-nominated “When Marnie Was There,” “From Up on Poppy Hill,” and more.
Since 2017, GKIDS has produced the annual Studio Ghibli Fest, a monthly nationwide theatrical program of Ghibli film screenings in over 800 theaters across the country. The series continues this year with a focus on the films of Hayao Miyazaki.
Studio Ghibli co-founder Suzuki addressed the lack of promotion for “The Boy and the Heron,” saying earlier this year in a translated interview, “As part of company operations, over the years Ghibli has wanted people to come see the movies we’ve made. So we’ve thought about that and done a lot of different things for that purpose — but this time we were like, ‘Eh, we don’t need to do that.’ Doing the same thing you’ve done before, over and over, you get tired of it. So we wanted to do something different.”
Suzuki added, “There’s an American movie — ah, I almost said the title out loud! — coming out this summer around the same time [as ‘How Do You Live?’]. They’ve made three trailers for it, and released them one at a time. If you watch all three, you know everything that’s going to happen in that movie. So how do moviegoers feel about that? There must be people, who, after watching all the trailers, don’t want to actually go see the movie. So, I wanted to do the opposite of that.”
