The character has been a staple in the fashion industry for years, starred in several television shows and even recorded an album, but she’s about to leap on to the silver screen. Yes, the Hello Kitty movie is set to be hitting cinemas in 2019 and reportedly it has been assigned a whopping budget of between $160m and $240m.

Created by Yuko Shimizu and produced by Japanese company Sanrio (who are also funding and producing the movie), the bow-wearing anthropomorphic cat was first introduced to Japan in 1975 and has since become a global icon. Hello Kitty products range from bags to notebooks to tumblers to towels to almost anything you can think of. The piano-playing, cookie-baking Japanese bobtail cat is now immensely popular with both adults and children. Last November, 25, 000 people attended a convention in LA to listen to speakers, attend workshops or get Hello Kitty tattoos. She is apparently worth around $7 billion, and that’s without any advertising.

Hello Kitty is the first Sanrio character to have her own movie. However, there are already plans for Mr Men and Little Miss characters to make it to film, after Sanrio struck a deal with Fox Animation. The firm are also considering a project based on Mr Melody and Little Twin Stars.

So now we have four years to speculate what adventures Hello Kitty and her friends will get up to in their feature-length blockbuster. With that budget, it’s got to be interesting…