Mamoru Hosoda, the Japanese director of Oscar-nominated animated feature Mirai, is working on a new film titled Scarlet, which will be co-produced and co-financed by Sony Pictures.
The animated film will be produced by Hosoda’s Studio Chizu and Nippon TV, telling the story of “a brave princess who transcends time and space”.
It marks the first time Sony Pictures has teamed with acclaimed animation outfit Studio Chizu, which has produced Hosoda’s hit features Wolf Children, The Boy And The Beast, Mirai and Belle.
Sony Pictures will distribute Scarlet globally, with the film’s US release set for winter 2025. Toho will handle theatrical distribution in Japan.
Producers are Studio Chizu co-founder Yuichiro Saito, Toshimi Tanio of Nippon TV and Nozomu Takahashi Studio Chizu.
Hosoda is one of Japan’s most renowned animation directors. He began his career at Toei Animation in 1991 as an animator before making his feature directorial debut in 1999 with Digimon Adventure, followed by Digimon Adventure: Our War Game! in 2000.
In 2006, he made The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, which proved a sleeper box office hit and was the first winner of the newly established Japan Academy Prize for best animation. He won the same prize in 2010 with Summer Wars, which also performed strongly at the box office and screened at Locarno and the Berlinale.
After establishing Studio Chizu with producer Saito in 2011, he wrote and directed Wolf Children (2012) and The Boy and the Beast (2015). His work on 2018’s Mirai secured an Oscar nomination for best animated feature.
His most recent film, Belle, premiered at Cannes in 2021 and became the highest-grossing film of his career, taking $64.7m worldwide, of which $58m came from its release in Japan, where it ranked as the third biggest title of the year.
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