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Everything you need to know about the new Miyazaki movie

The highly anticipated new Hayao Miyazaki movie has a release date.  

After ostensibly retiring, the legendary animator behind My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away has set his first film in a decade for 2023. Studio Ghibli, the animation studio Miyazaki co-founded, announced his next movie How Do You Live will open in Japan on July 14, 2023. The title is tentative. A teaser poster was also unveiled. 

The film, Miyazaki's first since 2013's The Wind Rises, is inspired by the 1937 novel of the same name by Genzaburo Yoshino, which follows a 15-year-old boy who has lost his father and develops a close relationship with his uncle. The book includes entries from a journal the uncle is writing to share advice with the boy. It sounds like the Miyazaki movie won't be a direct adaptation, though, with the book itself reportedly having an important meaning to the main character. 

Miyazaki has described How Do You Live as a favorite childhood book, so it makes sense this was the project that drew him out of retirement in 2017. Producer Toshio Suzuki told Entertainment Weekly the movie will be a "big, fantastical story." He also said Miyazaki is making the film "for his grandson" as a "way of saying, 'Grandpa is moving on to the next world, but he's leaving behind this film." 

Plans for a North American release of How Do You Live weren't detailed. But for context, The Wind Rises debuted in Japan in July 2013 before opening wide in the U.S. seven months later in February 2014, though it did receive a limited Oscar-qualifying run in November 2013. Based on that schedule, American viewers may have to wait until early 2024 to see the return of the king.