It’s now official as Naruto has announced it’s coming back for a new animated film, and the first look at details for the new project will be revealed very soon. Naruto celebrated the 20th anniversary of its original TV anime premiere a few years ago, and touted its comeback with a revival project that unfortunately has been on an indefinite delay for the last few years. With Boruto: Naruto Next Generations‘ official anime adaptation also going on a hiatus that same year, it’s meant that Naruto fans have been waiting a while for the franchise’s comeback.
Thankfully the wait for more of the Naruto anime is coming to an end soon enough as Viz Media is bringing the franchise to New York Comic 2026 this October with a game changing panel. Previously touting that it would feature some big updates from the future of the franchise, reports had popped up earlier this month that there would also be a new anime movie revealed for the first time. In a new press release from Viz Media, it’s now been confirmed as the panel will feature, “An announcement related to a new animated film and its worldwide premiere.”
Viz Media’s new Naruto franchise panel will be taking place on Saturday, October 10th during the New York Comic Con 2026 weekend. The panel will include new updates about the Naruto Card Game, other franchise developments, and most importantly, the first look about a new Naruto animated film in the works alongside what seems to be a confirmation of potential worldwide release details for the new release too. That’s going to be huge, especially if it’s going to be hitting screens worldwide around the same time as it would in Japan.
Those in attendance at the panel include Studio Pierrot executive producer Tominaga Yoshihiko, Naruto Uzumaki voice star Junko Takeuchi, and Sasuke Uchiha voice star Noriaki Sugiyama. With the Naruto anime franchise being on hiatus for the last few years, this is going to be the first significant update for its future in quite some time. But it’s also curious in the fact that it’s going to be a movie, and that does raise questions about what fans can hope to see.
Naruto’s feature film history is a bit hit or miss when looking back on it all. It comes from an older era where it was okay for Shonen Jump feature films to tell original stories outside of the manga canon, but that’s not really as acceptable anymore as franchise hits like Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle have changed what fans are looking for from their feature film experiences. With no Naruto material left to adapt, it might end up being an original story set outside of even the Boruto’s sequel events.
If that’s the case, it’s also possible that the planned Naruto TV revival was instead morphed into this new movie project and expanded upon. The 20th anniversary revival was going to be a four episode miniseries going back to Team 7’s earliest days, and that might have been turned into a new movie instead. With a live-action Naruto film also in the works, it really is going to be interesting to see what path the anime takes next.
