Disney Will Release Miyazaki's 'The Wind Rises' In The US

Briefly: The flirtation between Japanese animation giant Studio Ghibli and a smaller distributor didn't last long. For many years, Disney had the US distribution rights to all of Studio Ghibli's movies. A couple years back that deal ended, however, and in 2011 rights to the Ghibli catalog went to the small company Gkids. The outfit mounted revival screenings of most of the studio's animation slate last year, and distributed From Up on Poppy Hill, from Goro Miyazaki. (That film hits DVD next week.)

But Ghibli has gone back to Disney for US distribution of Hayao Miyazaki's latest film, The Wind Rises. The movie tells a dramatized version of the biography of Jiro Horikoshi, who designed the Zero fighter plane that became the iconic image of Japanese air power in WWII.

The film has already opened in Japan (to some controversy) but we don't have US release info yet. Borys Kit of THR tweeted the info that Disney will distribute. The film will have its North American premiere at TIFF in a couple weeks.