Another major Japanese franchise is heading to Hollywood. With anime becoming a dominant force in streaming and, recently, the box office, and Pokémon listed as the world’s highest-grossing media franchise since its inception in 1996, it’s no surprise that another franchise wants a piece of the Western audience by expanding its presence in an upcoming project.
Another popular Japanese character you may have heard of is Hello Kitty, from Sanrio. It is the 10th-highest-grossing global franchise, sitting between Harry Potter and Call of Duty, and was introduced in 1974. Since then, this character has appeared in many animated TV shows and web series. Additionally, the Hello Kitty franchise expanded, introducing other beloved characters. In 2019, it was announced that Hello Kitty would be getting her first movie from New Line Cinemas, and years later, there has been a major update.
In a recent report, it was announced that the Hello Kitty movie is scheduled to come out in two years, and it has tapped Moana 2 director David Derrick Jr and Ultraman: Rising‘s John Aoshima to co-direct the project, which has now found a home at Warner Bros. This Hello Kitty feature will reportedly be a live-action/animation hybrid movie, and the project also tapped Ramsey Naito (The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie) and Beau Flynn (Black Adam), as producers, and also includes Chaos Walking screenwriter, Lindsey Beer.
What To Watch If You Like Hello Kitty?
The plot for the Hello Kitty movie has yet to be revealed. But in the meantime, there are Sanrio projects you can stream while you wait. The first that comes to mind is the Netflix show My Melody & Kuromi. This is a Japanese stop-motion animation series that premiered in 2025, following My Melody and Kuromi’s “rivalry” in Mariland as Kuromi seeks to surpass My Melody’s baking. Meanwhile, YouTube is home to many Hello Kitty content, ranging from shorts to online web series. Hello Kitty and Friends Supercute Adventures is one of the most recent web series and it’s available to stream on the Hello Kitty and Friends YouTube channel and has released over 170 videos, spanning 13 seasons as of writing. In 2019, Hello Kitty had a crossover with Mobile Suit Gundam called Gundam vs Hello Kitty. This crossover only had three episodes, has a My Anime List score of 6.65, and starred Megumi Hayashibara (Pokémon Horizons: The Series) as Hello Kitty and Mobile Suit Gundam star, Toru Furuya as Amuro Ray.
The Hello Kitty film is scheduled to enter theaters on July 21, 2028. Follow Collider for more updates.
- Release Date
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November 27, 2024
- Runtime
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100 Minutes
- Director
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David G. Derrick Jr., Jason Hand, Dana Ledoux Miller
- Writers
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Dana Ledoux Miller, Jared Bush, Ron Clements, John Musker, Bek Smith
- Franchise(s)
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Disney