Some unfortunate news – the planned Yuri on Ice movie has been cancelled by studio MAPPA after numerous delays.

The anime film (full title Yuri!!! on ICE: ICE ADOLESCENCE) was cancelled due to ongoing production challenges.

“We apologize for not being able to live up to the expectations of everyone who has continued to support us over the years,” MAPPA said in a statement. “We have continued to make repeated discussions and adjustments in order to deliver this work to everyone, but due to various circumstances, we have come to the decision that we have no choice but to abandon production. I would like to sincerely apologize to everyone.”

The film was originally announced in April 2017 as a follow-up for the ice-skating anime, released in 2016. The anime is about two skaters named Yuri Katsuki and Yuri Plisetsky; the Russian Yuri as Yuri P trains the Japanese Yuri K for the Figure Skating Grand Prix.

Revealed by creators Sayo Yamamoto and Mitsurō Kubo as screenwriters and directors for the movie in 2019, it was repeatedly delayed from a 2019 and 2020 release, due to planning “to scale up the content more than originally planned”.

Despite the cancelation, MAPPA has two films in production with both Zombie Land Saga the Movie and Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc.