50 Years Later, the Japanese Icon That Launched an $80B Franchise Is Officially Coming to Live-Action

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.



















Collider Exclusive · Universe Personality Quiz
Which Iconic Universe Do You Belong in the Most?
Star Wars · Lord of the Rings · Harry Potter · Game of Thrones · Star Trek

Five legendary universes. Five completely different visions of what the world could be — or already was. One of them is the world your instincts, your values, and your particular way of existing were built for. Eight questions will tell you which one.

🚀Star Wars

💍Lord of the Rings

🧙Harry Potter

👑Game of Thrones

🖖Star Trek

01

What gives your life its deepest sense of meaning?
Every universe is built around a different answer to this question.





02

Which kind of world do you most want to inhabit?
The environment shapes who you become. Choose carefully.





03

How do you prefer your conflicts resolved?
The shape of a world’s conflicts tells you everything about its soul.





04

Who do you want beside you when things get difficult?
Your ideal companions reveal the world you were made for.





05

What is your relationship with power?
How you seek, wield, or resist power is the map of who you are.





06

How does your universe treat good and evil?
A world’s moral architecture tells you more about it than any map.





07

What role would you naturally fall into?
Every universe has archetypes. Which one fits you without trying?





08

What do you ultimately believe about the future?
The answer to this is the clearest window into which universe already lives inside you.





Your Universe Has Been Chosen
You Belong In…

Your answers point to the iconic universe your values, your instincts, and your particular way of seeing the world were built for. This is where you would find your people — and your purpose.


A Galaxy Far, Far Away

Star Wars

You believe in the cause — in the idea that freedom is worth fighting for even when the odds are impossible and the empire is vast.

  • You are drawn to the moral clarity of a universe where hope itself is a form of resistance.
  • You’d find your people in the Rebellion — a ragtag coalition of true believers held together by conviction more than resources.
  • Star Wars is fundamentally a story about ordinary people choosing to matter in an extraordinary conflict — and that is exactly your kind of story.
  • The Force may or may not be with you. But the will to use it for something larger than yourself certainly is.


Middle-earth

Lord of the Rings

You understand, in the deepest part of yourself, that the journey matters as much as the destination — and that the world’s beauty is worth protecting even at great cost.

  • Middle-earth is a world of ancient wonder, deep friendship, and a darkness that only retreats when enough small acts of courage accumulate.
  • You would thrive here because you value the fellowship more than the glory — the road more than the arrival.
  • Tolkien’s universe rewards patience, loyalty, and the willingness to carry something heavy across a very long distance.
  • Those are not burdens to you. They are simply how you move through the world.


The Wizarding World

Harry Potter

You believe that love, loyalty, and doing what’s right are not naive sentiments — they are the most powerful forces in any world, magical or otherwise.

  • The Wizarding World is a place of wonder hidden in plain sight, where learning is transformative and the bonds you form at school follow you into every battle.
  • You would flourish here because you take both the magic and the friendships seriously — and you understand that one without the other is incomplete.
  • Harry Potter’s universe ultimately rewards those who choose to stand for something even when standing is terrifying.
  • That choice — made quietly, without guarantee — is something you understand completely.


Westeros · The Known World

Game of Thrones

You see the world clearly — its power structures, its hypocrisies, its brutal arithmetic — and you are not paralysed by that clarity. You use it.

  • Westeros is a world that rewards intelligence, adaptability, and the willingness to understand that every alliance is also a negotiation.
  • You would survive here — possibly thrive here — because you don’t confuse the world as it is with the world as you’d like it to be.
  • Game of Thrones is a story about what happens when the idealists and the realists collide. You are sharp enough to know which one lasts longer.
  • Winter always comes. You are already prepared.


The United Federation of Planets

Star Trek

You believe the future is worth building — that curiosity, cooperation, and the expansion of understanding are not just ideals but the most practical path forward for any civilisation.

  • Star Trek is a universe where the questions matter as much as the answers, and where encountering something utterly alien is cause for wonder rather than fear.
  • You would belong here because you are fundamentally optimistic about what intelligence and decency can achieve — while being honest about how hard that achievement is.
  • The Federation is the universe’s most ambitious thought experiment: what if we actually got better?
  • You don’t just hope that’s possible. You think it’s the only thing worth working toward.

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.


image001.png


Release Date

November 27, 2024

Runtime

100 Minutes

Director

David G. Derrick Jr., Jason Hand, Dana Ledoux Miller

Writers

Dana Ledoux Miller, Jared Bush, Ron Clements, John Musker, Bek Smith

Franchise(s)

Disney



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