Pop Mart Partners With Sony Pictures to Bring Labubu to the Big Screen

Paul King, the filmmaker behind the beloved Paddington films, is attached to a live-action and CGI Labubu feature in early development at Sony Pictures, Pop Mart confirmed. The project marks the first time The Monsters IP has been positioned for a major theatrical run, and it arrives at a moment when Pop Mart is actively looking to sustain franchise momentum after HSBC analysts warned in February 2026 that the Labubu boom could normalize, forecasting an 11% to 13% cut to 2026-27 earnings.

Despite the scale of the announcement, Pop Mart COO Si De was careful to frame the film as a means rather than an end. "Movies are not Pop Mart's goal," Si De told CNBC's Elaine Yu on March 1. "What we look forward to more is using storytelling to help people fall in love with these IPs more deeply or find those points of connection. I think this is the core point of what we want to achieve with our content."

That philosophy shapes how Pop Mart is thinking about the creative output of any film or animation project. Si De described the value as twofold: "On one hand, it lets people see the [characters'] world more intuitively. On the other hand, it generates a large amount of material. Some of this material can become product designs, some can inspire our theme park design."

In other words, the Sony collaboration functions less like a Hollywood bet and more like a content pipeline. The Labubu figure that collectors are hunting across Pop Mart's blind-box drops and resale platforms could eventually share DNA with character designs developed for a feature film, with theme park concepts drawing from that same visual world.

The project is still in early development, with no confirmed release date, cast, or production timeline. Paul King's exact role has not been specified beyond being "on board." Sony Pictures has not issued a separate public statement, and Pop Mart has not disclosed financial terms of the partnership.

What is clear is the strategic logic. The Monsters series, which houses Labubu alongside other characters, has driven Pop Mart's recent explosive growth. Bringing that world to theaters, with a filmmaker whose Paddington films set the modern standard for character-driven live-action/CGI hybrids, signals that Pop Mart is treating its IPs with the same long-arc franchise thinking that has defined Sanrio and the LEGO Group. Whether the Labubu frenzy has enough runway to carry that ambition through production is the question HSBC's analysts are already raising.