Werner Herzog Is Directing His First Animated Feature, ‘The Twilight World’

Enigmatic German filmmaker and provocateur Werner Herzog is directing the first animated feature of his legendary sixty-plus year filmmaking career.

The 82-year-old director of films like Grizzly Man, Fitzcarraldo, Aguirre, The Wrath of God, and Cave of Forgotten Dreams, will make his feature animation directorial debut with The Twilight World, adapted from his recent novel of the same title.

The project, currently in development, will be pitched for the first time this week at the animated film pitching event Cartoon Movie in Bordeaux, France. Here’s what we currently know about Herzog’s film:

• Herzog’s book, from which the film is being made, tells the true story of Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese intelligence officer who refused to believe that World War II was over, and continued to fight a personal, fictitious war in the jungles of the Philippines for thirty years. The producers describe it as such: “Part fictionalized history, part war drama and part dream log, the film is a meditation on the nature of reality, the illusion of time, and the conflict between the external world and our inner lives.”
• The story is being adapted for screen by Michael Arias (Tekkonkinkreet, The Animatrix), and Luca Vitale, who are working closely with Herzog. Herzog will also narrate the film.
• It is currently set up as a French/German co-production between Psyop (Germany/U.S.), and Sun Creature Studio (France/Denmark). Production is expected to begin in 2026, following the completion of Herzog’s recently-announced live-action film Bucking Fastard. The film is still looking for partnerships with private investors, broadcasters, and distributors. Target release is 2028.
• Psyop, which turns 25 years old this year, is a respected producer of advertising and short-form work, while Sun Creature Studio is best known for the three-time Oscar-nominated animated documentary Flee and the Cartoon Network series The Heroic Quest of the Valiant Prince Ivandoe. Both studios will provide animation services.
• Herzog said in a statement:
  

  I always felt that Hiroo Onoda’s story, having spanned almost 30 years of fever dreams in the jungle, was best suited for literature, not cinema — which is why I chose to tell it through a novel. It wasn’t until the producers at Psyop approached me about adapting Onoda’s story into an animated film that I realized the potential that animation had to tell this story in a truly compelling and imaginative way. I am very much looking forward to the challenge of working in what is for me, a totally new medium.

• Amanda Miller and Andrew Linsk are producing the film for Psyop and Charlotte de la Gournerie is producing for Sun Creature. “Working with Werner is a masterclass in nuanced storytelling,” said Linsk. “And this particular story — because of the dreamlike and expressionistic way that it deals with the characters’ perception of the passage of time, is particularly suited to animation. The screenplay that Werner has crafted with Michael and Luca is unconventional and deeply layered, and the resulting film will bear the unmistakable mark of its director.”