Pokémon Are Making A Pikachu Detective Movie (Whether You Want It Or Not)
*throws Poké Ball at all your money*
You know that live-action Pokémon movie you didn’t know you wanted, centring around the Great Detective Pikachu game you didn’t know existed? Well, it’s coming, and it might just be the right combination of weird to work.
This morning it was announced that Legendary Entertainment has obtained the rights to make the film, and as the studio behind both Inception and Sucker Punch, its filmography is not going to give us any clues as to how well The Mysterious Case of Hercule Pikachu and Doctor Watson (I made this title up, if you steal it please give me lots of money) is going to turn out.
With the real world essentially already a live-action Pokémon movie, it isn’t surprising that studios are keen to cash in on people’s renewed enthusiasm for the franchise, and get the wheels moving as soon as possible on this.
Pictured: The Pokémon Company catching all your dollars.
And, though it’s not so well known, basing the film around Great Detective Pikachu is actually pretty smart move. It will bring in the diehard fans, it will bring in the morbidly curious, and it will bring in me: the person who will throw money at any crime-based narrative, especially if the mystery being solved is how a pocket monster that is literally just a set of keys made it all the way through the design process.
I guess after a certain point Pokémon designers get tenure or something?
The narrative of the game is that a Pikachu (who is better at solving crimes than he is at zapping his kinfolk with electricity) teams up with a young boy to solve crimes in their city. I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that these crimes are less “end-up-with-Gwyneth-Paltrow’s-Head-In-A-Box” and more “who-stole-the-freshly-baked-pie-off-the-windowsill”.
Until more info about the movie comes out (fingers crossed for Benedict Cumberbatch voicing Pikachu), here is the official Japanese trailer for the rather Sherlockian-looking game.