Matt Schley
June 5, 2023 
Studio Ghibli big boss Toshio Suzuki’s feelings on promoting Hayao Miyazaki’s new film can be summed up something like this: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So reports the Hollywood Reporter, which says How Do You Live?, which comes out in Japan July 14, will have no pre-release marketing: no trailers, no commercials, no plot summary, no nothin’.
The Reporter quotes Suzuki:
As part of company operations, over the years Ghibli has wanted people to come see the movies we’ve made. So we’ve thought about that and done a lot of different things for that purpose — but this time we were like, ‘Eh, we don’t need to do that.’
Yeah, to be fair, if you’ve got the most anticipated anime film in years, you don’t really need to go out of your way to promote it. Still, pretty badass move.
There is a poster for the film, to be fair—and that poster is seemingly part of what inspired Suzuki to go with the non-marketing campaign:
I’ve been involved with our movies since Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), but this was the first time Hayao Miyazaki genuinely praised me. ‘Suzuki-san, this is amazing. This is the best poster you’ve ever made,’ he said. I felt like that was a hint, so I decided ‘Let’s go with just this one poster for the marketing.’ So, no trailers or TV commercials at all… No newspaper ads either. Deep down, I think this is what moviegoers latently desire.
How Do You Live? hits Japanese screens July 14.
Source: Hollywood Reporter
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