Hello Kitty Is Headed for the Big Screen—Warner Bros. Locks Release Date

Hello Kitty is finally packing her bow for Hollywood. Warner Bros. just planted a flag for the character's first big-screen, big-studio adventure, and yes, the timeline is very real.

The short version

• Release date: July 21, 2028 (summer, prime weekend)
• Studios: Warner Bros. Pictures Animation and New Line Cinema
• Director: Leo Matsuda (Disney's Inner Workings)
• Writer: Dana Fox (credited here as the writer of Wicked)
• Producer: Beau Flynn (FlynnPictureCo.), with Shelby Thomas overseeing for the company
• Rights history: New Line acquired film rights from Sanrio in 2019 — the first time Sanrio licensed its characters for a major motion picture
• Positioning: One of WB's big summer plays for 2028

So when is she actually hitting theaters?

WB and New Line dated the movie for July 21, 2028. The confirmation arrived as part of a wider slate update shared online, and then WB doubled down on Instagram with a pretty straightforward promise:

"Hello Hollywood #HelloKittyMovie is coming to theaters July 21, 2028!"

It is Hello Kitty's first-ever Hollywood feature, and the studios are clearly treating it like a prime family title for that summer corridor.

Who's making this thing?

Leo Matsuda is directing. If the name rings a bell, he helmed Disney's short Inner Workings, which leaned hard on expressive, cartoony visual storytelling — a good match for Sanrio's vibe.

Dana Fox wrote the screenplay. Producer Beau Flynn is backing it through FlynnPictureCo., and he has apparently been at this for nearly a decade — securing the rights directly from Sanrio founder Shintaro Tsuji took time. Shelby Thomas is overseeing the project for FlynnPictureCo. The company also has Disney's live-action Moana on deck for July 2026, so they are very much in the family-event lane right now.

How we got here

Sanrio created Hello Kitty in 1974, and she quickly turned into a global merchandising powerhouse — the kind that ends up on everything from backpacks to airplanes. The brand branched out into themed cafes, amusement parks, and video games, but for all that ubiquity, a Hollywood feature never happened until New Line locked the film rights in 2019. That deal marked the first time Sanrio licensed its characters for a major studio movie, which is a big swing for a company that usually keeps a tight grip on its IP.

Will other Sanrio favorites show up?

No confirmations yet, but fans are already wondering if characters like My Melody, Gudetama, or the Little Twin Stars will make appearances. Given how broad the Sanrio universe is, it would be surprising if Hello Kitty showed up without a few friends.

The studio's angle

Warner Bros. Pictures Animation and New Line are producing, and the language around the announcement frames this as a wide-audience play: Hello Kitty and friends on a big, all-ages adventure. Translation: expect a clean, bright family four-quadrant push. Also worth noting: the date drop came packaged with other upcoming WB titles, so the studio is clearly slotting it as part of a larger, carefully spaced 2028 calendar.

Bottom line: it took years and a lot of wrangling to get Hello Kitty to Hollywood, but the bow lands in theaters July 21, 2028. Pencil it in.