Film

‘Detective Pikachu’ Has Broken A Huge Movie Record, All Hail The Talking Pokémon

Highest grossing video game movie of all time? Sure.

by Joseph Earp  18 July 2019
Pokémon: Detective Pikachu

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Let’s face it: on paper, Detective Pikachu should not work.

Sure, Pokemon is absurdly popular — it’s one of the highest grossing entertainment properties of all time, and a franchise that is embedded in an entire generation’s cultural memories. But you know what’s not quite as popular? The bizarre Detective Pikachu game.

It makes a lot of sense to launch a Pokemon cinematic universe with a movie that focuses on beloved character Ash, and slowly introduces newtime viewers to the world of pocket monsters. It makes a lot less sense to launch a universe with a super bizarre, canon-breaking flick in which Pikachu wears a deerstalker hat and is voiced by Ryan Reynolds for a reason that only becomes apparent in the film’s final five minutes.

But hey, looks like a highly risky move has properly paid off: Detective Pikachu has just become the highest grossing video game movie of all time, netting USD$429.5 million.

Oddly enough, the film Detective Pikachu had to vault over to take that title is Duncan ‘Son Of David Bowie’ Jones’ Warcraft adaptation.

Everybody forgets that, despite being released to aggressively bad reviews in the States, Australia, and the UK, that Lord of the Rings pastiche made a truly staggering amount of change in China. Indeed, Pikachu has only just pipped it at the post — Warcraft netted over $400 million when it was released back in 2016.

But Pikachu didn’t just win big in terms of profits; it was also reasonably warmly received by critics. Which is surprising, given that the film is mostly incomprehensible, centring around a plot driven by an angry Bill Nighy, some kind of weird fart gas that makes everyone mad, and a series of deeply confused set-pieces culminating in a moment where everybody transforms into a Pokemon for absolutely no reason.

Indeed, given all of the things working against it, we have to assume that at least $200 million of that total profit must have come down to the star-making turn from the perpetually confused, aggressively relatable Psyduck.