Hideaki Anno served as the writer and general manager of the project, with Kazuya Tsurumaki, Masayuki, Mahiro Maeda and Katsuichi Nakayama directing the films themselves.

[4] The concept of jo-ha-kyū (序破急), which roughly corresponds to "beginning", "middle", and "end", originated in classical gagaku music and is best known to describe the acts of a noh play.

In lieu of the traditional classification, the production team has chosen to represent kyū (急, [ˈkʲɯː], "hurry") with the Roman letter Q, for "quickening."

At first, Anno wanted to simply remake the original anime series as a more modern film, significantly altering only the ending.

[24] The studio involved with production of the original series, Gainax was facing significant problems at the time, and Anno felt unable to continue his project there.

[25] In order to produce the films, Anno left Gainax and founded Khara in May 2006 together with most of the talent involved in the original anime series.

[26] In the December 2006 issue of Newtype, Anno revealed he was happy to finally recreate Eva "as he wanted it to be" in the beginning and that he was no longer constrained by technological and budget limitations.

[33] In 2019 the final film, now called Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time, was scheduled for a June 27, 2020 release date but received two delays due to concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic.

[40] On 10 November 2016, Fontworks began selling the Matisse EB TrueType edition family, which includes the television series and Rebuild of Evangelion versions of the font.

[41][42] An updated version of the film, titled Evangelion: 3.0+1.01 Thrice Upon a Time, was released in Japanese theaters on June 12, 2021.