You had better enjoy anime legend Hayao Miyazaki's next film, The Wind Rises, because it'll be his last.
The news comes courtesy of Koji Hoshino, one of the heads of Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli; this is what he said at the Venice Film Festival, where Miyazaki's eleventh and final film screened: "Miyazaki has decided that Kaze Tachinu (The Wind Rises) will be his last film, and he will now retire."
Moment of silence, everyone.
Miyazaki's a pretty reclusive guy, which leads us to conclude that when he says he's retiring, he might actually stay retired; this is unlike, say, Steven Soderbergh, who has said he would retire multiple times, yet always makes new films afterwards. Plus, at 72, who can blame Miyazaki for wanting to take it easy from now on?
So that's it. With The Wind Rises, the legendary career that has produced such classics as Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle will come to an end.
Disney will be releasing the anime auteur's final film about World War II-era airplane designer Jiro Horikoshi in the U.S. An American release date has not yet been announced, although the movie came out in Japan in July.
If you're up for feeling sad, you can re-watch the English subtitled trailer, here.
[via Variety]