10 Recent Movies That Were Absolute HELL To Make
4. The Boy & The Heron
Hayao Miyazaki's recent Oscar-winning animation The Boy and the Heron was released last year after seven years of development, with Miyazaki first starting work on the film in 2016.
Though originally aiming to release it in 2020, production was slowed by both Miyazaki's more methodical working rate in older age, and the impact of the pandemic.
This led to the film's budget ballooning, making it the most expensive film ever produced in Japan, and so Studio Ghibli sourced extra funds by licensing much of their back catalogue to streaming services such as Netflix.
Each of the film's frames was hand-drawn by a team of 60 animators, and even after three years of production, just 36 minutes of the movie had been completed.
Yet given that The Boy and the Heron was widely praised by critics and went on to win an Oscar after finally releasing in 2023, all that effort was clearly worth it.
Hilariously, despite Miyazaki insisting that this would indeed be his final film - after previously teasing retirement several times - it was recently confirmed that he's currently developing his next project.