On July 19, during an interview about the completion of upcoming film Godzilla: Resurgence (Shin Godzilla) film, director Hideaki Anno commented on the long-awaited final film in Gainax 's four-part remake of the Neon Genesis Evangelion anime series.

The staff of the Godzilla press event made an official statement asking the audience to please refrain from bringing up Evangelion , but Anno chose to open by saying, "First of all, I would like to apologize. I have kept you waiting for the new Evangelion for a very, very long time. I am deeply sorry."

He continued, "To me, Evangelion is my soul; it is a work that scrapes off bits of my soul. The previous work, Evangelion Shin Gekijōban: Q [ Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo ], scraped me down until I wasn't able to make anything anymore." Anno confessed that he felt, "saved" by the opportunity to work on Godzilla: Resurgence, and said, "Now I feel like I can continue working on Evangelion ."

Anno previously commented on the final film at the Tokyo International Film Festival in 2014, where he said, "I'm thinking that I'll return to Evangelion after I do something different," and joked that there might end up being a 4-6 year gap between the third and fourth films. No release date has been announced, though a magazine previously speculated in 2014 that the film would debut at the end of 2015.

The title for the final Evangelion film was announced back in 2012 as Evangelion Shin Gekijōban :||, or Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 . The ":||" at the end of the Japanese title is meant to be the symbol used in music to denote repetition after reaching the end of a measure.

The first three films in the tetralogy, Evangelion: 1.0 You Are [Not] Alone , Evangelion: 2.0 You Can [Not] Advance , and Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo , were released in 2007, 2009, and 2012 respectively.

Source: Cinema Cafe via Minna no Eva-fan