Which is to say that New Line and Warner Bros. Pictures Animation have finally set a full release date for the Hello Kitty film: July 21, 2028. And, sure, those studios will probably have gone through at least two new owners by that point, as Hollywood’s cannibalistic orgy of mergers and acquisitions continues to thrash. And, yeah, the general psychic static produced by the onrushing 2028 American election will probably be producing free-standing migraines in anything with a brainstem. But, on the other hand, you’ll be able to see Hello Kitty and her various highly marketable friends frolic and play on a big, shiny screen! Bright sides, champ.
Created in 1974, the main thing you need to know about Hello Kitty is that she is not, of course, a cat. (“She’s a cartoon character. She is a little girl. She is a friend. But she is not a cat. She’s never depicted on all fours. She walks and sits like a two-legged creature.”) Parent company Sanrio has been making moves to get the character (who starred in a couple of anime films back in the day, but surprisingly little else) into international theaters for years and years, including stating that it was willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to do it. New Line and Warner Bros.’ efforts to capitalize on the popular character have moved along slowly since first being announced in 2019, but are apparently finally at the “Well, we can at least aim at a far-future date on the calendar” point. (And, hey: Sorry if it seemed like we faltered for a minute in that last sentence; we were just overwhelmed by a sudden vision of how much movie theater merch this thing is going to generate. We’re going to be banging our shins on leftover popcorn tins for years.)
[via Deadline]
