Over the course of four decades, the iconic Sanrio character has turned into a billion-dollar industry that fuels itself, not even requiring any sort of advertising whatsoever - which is why, understandably, the Japanese company's investing hundreds of millions in creating a Hello Kitty movie.
The people behind the Hello Kitty movie will be the United States subsidiary of Sanrio in Japan, and the current budget for the film, set for a 2019 release, is $200 million, showing just how confident the Japanese giant is with the character, which currently makes about $7 billion a year worldwide.
According to Deadline, the Hello Kitty movie will hail from Sanrio Media & Pictures Entertainment, the U.S.-based subsidiary previously mentioned, which was established last June to exploit the company's incredibly large IP as well as expanding its brand library, and the man behind it is Rehito Hatoyama, who will be overseeing Hello Kitty's big screen debut.
Cinema Blend reports that it's still unclear what kind of format will be used for the Hello Kitty movie, as it can easily be just animation or a hybrid between animation and live action, vastly used with other properties in the past.
In any case, it's being reported that Sanrio's estimated budget for the Hello Kitty movie is somewhere between $160 and $240 million.
Of course, the film will follow the adventures of the iconic character, Kitty White, a cat (or rather a little girl, according to Sanrio) who lives in London with her family and likes to bake and collect things.
According to The Guardian, the Hello Kitty movie isn't the only possible character getting a big screen treatment from the Japanese company, as others like Little Twin Stars and My Melody have been thrown into the discussion for adaptations, and both Little Miss and Mr. Men were acquired by Fox Animations last January, so adaptations may be coming very soon for the classic characters.
