Rising screenwriter Lindsey Beer has been welcomed aboard the Hello Kitty movie in the works at New Line, Collider has confirmed. Beer has two feature credits to her name — the Netflix original Sierra Burgess Is a Loser and the upcoming Tom Holland–Daisy Ridley movie Chaos Walking — yet she has had a hand in numerous tentpole films, including Transformers: The Last Knight.
Beau Flynn is producing the Hello Kitty movie via his FlynnPicture Co along with Sanrio, the Japanese company behind the iconic pop culture brand, which has been around since 1974. The plan is for a four-quadrant movie with global appeal, a la Pokemon Detective Pikachu. there’s no word on whether Hello Kitty will be a hybrid film like Detective Pikachu, or fully animated. Either way, other popular Sanrio characters Gudetama, My Melody, and Little Twin Stars were included in the original rights deal.
Beer is a solid get for the Hello Kitty movie, as she battle-tested when it comes to high-profile projects. Not only has she had a hand in writing Sony’s Masters of the Universe, Lionsgate’s The Kingkiller Chronicles and Paramount’s Transformers: The Last Knight, but she has also participated in writers rooms for tentpole franchises like Star Trek and Legendary’s Monsterverse. Additionally, Beer will serve as showrunner and executive producer on Netflix’ adaptation of Mark Millar’s comic The Magic Order, and she’s also co-writing a female-centric Fast & Furious spinoff with Geneva Robertson-Dworet (Tomb Raider).
Beer and Robertson-Dworet recently teamed with the latter’s Captain Marvel co-writer Nicole Perlman to launch the production company Known Universe, which is expected to be credited as an executive producer on the Hello Kitty movie. The Detective Pikachu movie grossed $425 million worldwide, and you have to think that New Line would be satisfied with that kind of global haul for Hello Kitty, which skews much younger and more female than the Pokemon movie.
Flynn Picture Co’s upcoming releases include a pair of Dwayne Johnson movies from director Jaume Collet-Serra — Disney’s Jungle Cruise and WB/New Line’s superhero movie Black Adam. Deadline broke the news of Beer’s hire.
via Collider