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Podcasts Take Two
On the Lot: Hello Kitty! On the big screen
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Jul 6, 2015
Listen • 8:05
On the Lot: Hello Kitty! On the big screen
The Japanese feline phenom, Hello Kitty, is coming to the big screen in 2019, with a tom cat-size production budget of around $200 million.
The red-bowed, beloved kitty cat is coming to the big screen
The red-bowed, beloved kitty cat is coming to the big screen
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The Japanese feline phenom, Hello Kitty, is coming to the big screen in 2019, with a tom cat-size production budget of around $200 million.

Each week, the LA Times' Rebecca Keegan joins us for important news from the film business. Who's big at the box office, what name director turned down a movie, which superhero franchise is getting a reboot.

There's lots of that news this week. But the really, really important news concerns a character that, heretofore, has been ubiquitous on lunch boxes, but absent from the big screen.

Stand by for Hello Kitty, the movie. The 40-year-old feline phenom already has a Facebook page (Kitty lives in London, collects goldfish), so a movie seems the logical next step.

And this is not going to be an indy film, or a low-budget exploitation flick. The Japanese firm that's producing the film, scheduled for release in 2019, says it will have a budget somewhere around $200 million.

That's a lot of kitty litter.