We hear about Hollywood wanting to remake anime movies with real, in-the-flesh actors all the time, these days, but there’s still something uniquely-intriguing about the prospect of an animation studio making its own forays into live-action. We sort-of, kind-of got to see such a circumstance revolving around Pixar recently with JOHN CARTER and MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE IV being helmed by two of the studio’s regular directors. Now, here’s this tidbit from ANN to advance the already-plentiful comparisons between Pixar and Ghibli.
The studio’s producing a live-action short entitled “Giant God Warrior Appears in Tokyo” to play in an exhibit at Hideaki Anno’s Special Effects Museum. Bringing on all sorts of connections to Anno’s stint as an animator on NAUSICAA, the project’s been conceived by the EVANGELION creator, its titular God Warrior’s been designed by Hayao Miyazaki himself and it’ll be directed by Shinji Higuchi, a former EVA storyboard artist.
With genes from ULTRAMAN and WARNING FROM SPACE also swirling around in the DNA of this project, it sounds like it could be an explosive mix of dark and light, ying and yang and all other sorts of opposites. Seriously, could you find two studios with sensibilities more divergent than Ghibli and Gainax?
There’s not much to go on, at moment, but it promises to be packed to the gills with SFX and, by my highly-educated guess, will more than likely involve at least a couple men in suits walloping each other for at least part of the running time.
Tom Pinchuk’s the writer of HYBRID BASTARDS! & UNIMAGINABLE. Order them on Amazon here & here. Follow him on Twitter: @tompinchuk
Ultraman? Hideako Anno and Miyazaki? I'm sold, can't wait to see it!
Hideaki Anno working with Studio Ghibli on live action? Now this I have to see.