Photo: PR Times
entertainment

U.S.-made live-action Hello Kitty movie on the way

14 Comments
By Casey Baseel, SoraNews24

Hello Kitty is the hardest working cat in show business, and the Sanrio star is on her way to becoming a Hollywood one as well.

Warner Bros Entertainment’s California-based New Line Cinema has just announced who’ll be helming Kitty-chan’s first-ever U.S.-produced, and first-ever live-action, movie. Making up one half of the co-directing duo is Jennifer Coyle, whose recent credits include producer for HBO Max’s animated "Harley Quinn" series, "Scooby-Doo! and the Curse of the 13th Ghost," and "DC Super Hero Girls." Coyle also served as a director for "DC Super Hero Girls" and "Bob’s Burgers."

Sharing directing duties with Coyle will be Japanese-Brazilian artist Leo Matsuda, best known for writing and directing the Disney animated short "Inner Workings" before contributing to "Big Hero 6," "Zootopia" and "Ralph Breaks the Internet" as a story artist.

▼ Coyle (left) and Matsuda (right)

KM-2.jpg

Both directors expressed their enthusiasm and reverence for the character, with Coyle saying “This is not only a rare chance to bring a beloved character to life, but also to spread the message of love, friendship and inclusivity that Hello Kitty stands for. The world so needs her brand of joy and happiness,” and Matsuda saying “Growing up in Brazil with a Japanese family, I was surrounded by the whimsy of Hello Kitty and it served as a reminder that it’s okay to be different.”

The Hello Kitty movie will be a “live-action/animation hybrid,” which likely means that it’ll be following the roadmap laid out by box office successes "Detective Pikachu" and "Sonic the Hedgehog," both of which took characters that started in a hand-drawn illustrated style and gave them thorough 3-D CG makeovers in order for them to share scenes with human actors.

However, the Hello Kitty film will have its own unique difficulty to address, in that the character doesn’t have a mouth, a purposeful design decision made to help fans project whatever emotion they’re feeling at the moment onto the character, making her constantly relatable. Yes, Kitty-chan does manage to speak in her hand-drawn animated appearances without it looking too strange (like that time she got caught up in that space battle where a bunch of people got killed). Giving her dialogue but no mouth is going to look a lot more awkward, though, if she’s placed in real-life environments with human co-stars, so it’ll be interesting to see what sort of solution Coyle and Matsuda settle on when the movie, which currently has no projected release date, comes out.

Sources: PR Times, Comic Natalie via Otakomu, Deadline

Read more stories from SoraNews24.

-- Wonder Woman x Hello Kitty collaboration is coming to Japan

-- Sonic the Hedgehog getting a new CG Netflix series produced in the U.S. and Canada

-- Hello Kitty cosplays as gun-slinging schoolgirl from new “Sailor Suit and Machine Gun” movie

© SoraNews24

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

14 Comments
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The studio also said that in the interest of diversity, Hello Kitty will be played by a gay black labrador.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

The actual ‘creator’ has been left out of the profits. In 1974, Yuko Shimizu showed a drawing perfect simplistic design that her boss, Sanrio founder Shintaro Tsuji “not too bad." After her boss's apparent ambivalence, young Shimizu ‘left the company to get married’. At 74, she still makes a living illustrating books.

Sanrio makes $191 million a year. Shintaro Tsuji resigned Jun ‘20 and has a net worth of over $1 billion.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Are you accusing them of ‘whitewashing’ H. Kitty? @proxy 9:10a JST “I demand Jennifer Coyle be fired and a person of Japanese ancestry be hired or Hollywood is racist!”

1 ( +1 / -0 )

..eerie...next time they will sure come out with Ultraman and new Original Japanese movie looks good.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Just what we need to take away the covid blues, I'm going front row 4d imax, hopefully with my pussy

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Yes Hiro, it would be extremely weird..

2 ( +2 / -0 )

They'll ruin it

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Pokemon detective and Sonic wasn't bad. So i do see potential but is there even a story for hello kitty? I always see it as some cute mascot. Would be really weird to see a movie to be made considering there is not much content for a full length movie.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

No! Please spare the world!!

3 ( +4 / -1 )

I demand that Jennifer Coyle be fired and a person of Japanese ancestry be hired or Hollywood is racist!

0 ( +3 / -3 )

WHY WHY WHY????????????????

4 ( +5 / -1 )

Oh God.... Please don't...

5 ( +6 / -1 )

Speaking without a mouth?

Weird...

5 ( +6 / -1 )

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