‘Belle’ Director Mamoru Hosoda’s New Film ‘Scarlet’ Sets Winter 2025 Release Date

‘Scarlet’, the highly anticipated animated picture directed by Mamoru Hosoda, will be released by Sony in the winter of 2025. Hosoda and producer Yuichiro Saito co-founded the animation studio Studio CHIZU in 2011, and this is the first time Sony Pictures has partnered with them. The film is characterized as the tale of a courageous princess who transcends time and space, although the plot is still unknown. Yuichiro Saito and Nozomu Takahashi of Studio CHIZU and Toshimi Tanio of Nippon TV are producing ‘Scarlet.’ 

Toho will oversee the local release, while Sony will handle distribution outside of Japan.

‘Scarlet’ builds on Hosoda’s prior success with ‘Belle’, a highly regarded movie based on the French fairy tale ‘Beauty and the Beast’ from 1756. With $64.7 million worldwide, ‘Belle’ became the third-highest-grossing Japanese picture of 2021 and earned a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. 

Image Courtesy: Reddit

Hosoda began working as an animator at Toei Animation in 1991, and in 1999, he directed his first film, ‘Digimon Adventure’. Since then, he has directed a number of well-known movies, such as ‘Summer Wars’, ‘Wolf Children’, ‘The Girl Who Leapt Through Time’, and ‘The Boy and the Beast’, all of which have received multiple awards. His 2018 film ‘Mirai’, which follows a young child as he examines family dynamics, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

Expect to see Hosoda’s trademark character designs, magical elements, and emotionally stirring narrative in ‘Scarlet’. 

–Farheen Ali