Interest
Ghibli's Toshio Suzuki Reveals Live-Action Nausicaä Offers
posted on by Kim Morrissy
Studio Ghibli co-founder Toshio Suzuki revealed in an interview on Fuji TV's Bokura no Jidai (Our Era) television program on Sunday that the studio has received a number of offers to adapt Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind into live-action. The list includes eminent directors such as Evangelion's Hideaki Anno (Shin Godzilla, Shin Ultraman, Shin Kamen Rider).
Actor Hidetaka Yoshioka commented that director Takashi Yamazaki (Always: Sunset on Third Street, live-action Space Battleship Yamato and Parasyte, Lupin III THE FIRST, Stand By Me Doraemon) had always said that he wanted to make a Nausicaä live-action version. To this, Suzuki replied that he had heard this from Yamazaki himself, but he was always telling him no. According to him, everyone wants to make a Nausicaä live-action project except for Hayao Miyazaki, who directed the original animated film.
In 2013, Miyazaki revealed in an interview that he is open to the possibility of a Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind film sequel. However, he would leave such a hypothetical project in the hands of Evangelion director Hideaki Anno.
When asked if he was interested in making a continuation or part 2 of Nausicaä, he replied, “No, I don't. I don't really feel like doing it, but Anno keeps on saying, 'I want to do it! I want to do it!,' so I tell him now that I've come to think lately that if he wanted to do it, it would be fine for him to do it.”
In 2012, Anno created a live-action tokusatsu (special-effects) short with Ghibli titled Giant God Warrior Appears in Tokyo. The short draws inspiration from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.
Anno was a key animator on Nausicaä, and he later drew inspiration from the film's Giant God Warriors (and childhood memories of the tokusatsu franchise Ultraman) to create Evangelion.
