In 2022, Ghibli’s Studio Spirited Away gets its first live-action theatrical adaptation.
This is the first Studio Ghibli film to be stage adapted. In 2013, Studio Ghibli and Whole Hog Theater collaborated on one live action Princess Mononoke, which ran at the New Diorama Theater in London.
This time, the Tony and Olivier Award-winning director John Caird (Les Misérables, Nicholas Nickleby, Daddy Long Legs) will write and control the adaptation.
Known as Sen to Chihiro in Japan, Spirited Away was released in 2001 and became a huge hit in Japan.
“I feel so excited and privileged to be working on the very first stage adaptation of Sen to Chihiro, ”Caird said in an official statement. “For many years I have considered Miyazaki Hayao to be one of the foremost geniuses of world cinema and the greatest ever advocate of the anime form.”
G / O Media can receive a commission
‘I must have worked on it for a thousand hours Sen to Chihiro and I look forward to spending many thousands more, ”he said
Both Mone Kamishiraishi and Kanna Hashimoto have been double cast as the main Chihiro. Mone is perhaps best known for her work in the anime your name while Hashimoto has starred in a series of movies and TV.
“We, Hayao and I, both loved John’s vision. He is a person we can trust, ”said Toshio Suzuki of Studio Ghibli, who produced the original film. “I look forward to seeing Chihiro grow on the podium under his leadership.”
‘I could tell from his delighted face how much he loves this story when I gave him a No-Face piggy bank,Suzuki added.
The stage version of Spirited Away will debut at the Imperial Theater in Tokyo, Japan in February 2022 and will run through March. Production will make your way to Osaka (April), Fukuoka (May), Sapporo (June) and Nagoya (June and July).