Hayao Miyazaki has started production on his latest untitled animated feature at his Studio Ghibli, reports VARIETY.
Scheduled for summer 2008, his last picture bowed in 2004 HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE, which grossed $170 million in Japan alone and $225M internationally.
International and U.S. distributors have yet to be announced. Toho has handled all of Miyazaki's recent pictures.
Studio Ghibli reports that Miyazaki and his main staff scouted locations in Kobe, a port on Japan's Inland Sea, and that Miyazaki is using watercolors for his storyboards, instead of his traditional black and white.
Miyazaki won the animated feature Oscar, as well as a slew of other awards, for SPIRITED AWAY, and he received a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the Venice Film Festival in 2005.
