Studio Chizu has shared the first look for Academy Award-nominated director Mamoru Hosoda’s next film, Scarlet. The studio released a teaser trailer for the movie alongside a bright-red poster. Scarlet‘s premise follows the adventures of a brave princess who transcends time and space. The poster features the princess wielding a sword and wearing a blood-soaked, white dress, standing on top of a valley of red bodies. The trailer featured many action scenes, including scenes where the Princess is dueling against enemies, a large lightning bolt hitting the ground, and balls of fire spewing across the skies. The film is being set as Hosoda’s most violent work yet.
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Columbia Pictures, a Sony Pictures studio, is co-financing Scarlet alongside Studio Chizu and Nippon TV. Sony will handle the film’s global distribution outside of Japan, while Toho will be in charge of distribution in its home country. Scarlet comes off the heels of Hosoda’s Belle, the director’s most financially successful film yet. Belle achieved over 64 million USD at the worldwide box office. Scarlet utilizes similar 3D models Hosoda displayed in Belle, continuing to refine the process. Scarlet will release exclusively in movie theaters on December 12th.
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Scarlet Is Mamoru Hosoda’s Next Film
Mamoru Hosoda has become one of the most respected Japanese directors outside of Studio Ghibli. Scarlet would be his eighth feature-length film, not including his contribution to the American-edited version of Digimon: The Movie. His first major directorial work was the Digimon Adventure short movie in 1999, which served as a prologue to the main anime. His style would be key in forming the Digimon anime’s early identity. Hosoda would then work on Digimon: Our War Games, one of the most celebrated Digimon media in the franchise, introducing major elements like Omnimon. After directing One Piece: Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island, he would move on to more original work, starting with The Girl Who Lept Through Time.
A common motif in Hosoda’s films is themes about family and the digital world, the latter of which is likely a carry-over from his beginnings with Digimon. His movies, like Summer Wars and Belle, center on a digital space where people interact with avatars. Wolf Children is about the relationship between mothers and their children, while The Boy and the Beast is about the relationship between a father and son. Digimon Adventure: The Movie focuses, among other things, on the sibling relationship between Tai and Kari. Hosoda would ultimately earn an Academy Award nomination for his 2018 film Mirai, a personal motion picture about a young boy learning to deal with the birth of his baby sister by meeting a version of her from the future.
H/T: Deadline
