{"id":817872,"date":"2026-08-18T17:26:28","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T17:26:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/817872\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T17:26:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T17:26:28","slug":"studio-ghiblis-future-next-film-ai-and-miyazakis-successor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/817872\/","title":{"rendered":"Studio Ghibli\u2019s Future: Next Film, AI, And Miyazaki\u2019s Successor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Bloomberg has published a fascinating deep dive <\/a>into Studio Ghibli\u2019s current state, offering a look at a future that feels completely unplanned yet somehow entirely expected for a studio that has always done things unconventionally. Hayao Miyazaki still comes to work every day, the studio doesn\u2019t know what its next feature will be, and apparently, that\u2019s just fine to the powers that be.<\/p>\n

The piece, by Sohee Kim and Felix Gillette, is well worth reading in full. The reporters visited Ghibli\u2019s headquarters outside Tokyo and spoke with Goro Miyazaki and new president<\/a> and CEO Kenichi Yoda about what comes next for perhaps the world\u2019s most celebrated animation studio.<\/p>\n

Here are a few of our biggest takeaways, but the Bloomberg piece doesn\u2019t appear to be behind a paywall, at least not in reader mode, so we recommend checking out the whole thing when you\u2019ve got the time.<\/p>\n

Ghibli has no next feature lined up: More than two and a half years after releasing the Oscar-winning The Boy and the Heron<\/a>, the studio hasn\u2019t announced another movie, and it isn\u2019t rushing to do so. Yoda says Ghibli\u2019s founders have never been particularly interested in market research, investors, or release calendars. If the right idea isn\u2019t there, they simply won\u2019t force a film into production while they wait for inspiration to strike.<\/p>\n

Hayao Miyazaki, now 85, is still showing up for work every day: What is he working on? Nobody at the studio seems to know or be too worried about it. \u201cOnly he knows exactly what he\u2019s working on,\u201d Yoda says. That includes his son, his longtime producing partner, Ghibli\u2019s new CEO, and its investors.<\/p>\n

Finding a filmmaker to take over isn\u2019t easy: Yoda says Ghibli would be willing to work with an outside director on a future feature. Goro\u2019s assessment of the likelihood of that happening while his father is still around, however, is \u201cabsolutely impossible.\u201d Yoda puts it even better: \u201cAny sane animation director would not come close to this castle,\u201d while the most iconic living animation director is still occupying the throne.<\/p>\n

Ghibli isn\u2019t as anti-AI as many may think: Despite Hayao Miyazaki\u2019s famous \u201cinsult to life\u201d comments nearly a decade ago and the more recent controversy over AI-generated Ghibli-style imagery, Goro says the studio is essentially agnostic about the technology. \u201cWe\u2019re not denying, or feeling negative, about AI technology itself,\u201d he says. It\u2019s a more nuanced position than Ghibli is often credited with, drawing a distinction between the technology itself and how people choose to use it. Goro even suggests that late Ghibli co-founder Isao Takahata, who was always interested in new technology, would probably have been among the first to experiment with AI.<\/p>\n

Nippon TV doesn\u2019t want to turn Ghibli into a franchise factory: Yoda, who took over as CEO in June, says Ghibli isn\u2019t primarily focused on profit and describes his job as protecting what already exists. \u201cWhat matters is that nothing changes.\u201d<\/p>\n

That may be the most reassuring takeaway from the piece after the Japanese broadcaster acquired<\/a> a majority stake in Ghibli in 2023.<\/p>\n

The studio doesn\u2019t know what movie it\u2019s making next, who will eventually replace Miyazaki, or what the studio will look like without him. And, remarkably, nobody seems to think those questions need answering just yet. At least not publicly, anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bloomberg has published a fascinating deep dive into Studio Ghibli\u2019s current state, offering a look at a future…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":817873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[88,206],"class_list":["post-817872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}