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A live-action Detective Pikachu Pokemon movie is coming - no, really

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By Connor Sheridan published 21 July 2016

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If you told me back when I was training my first Bulbasaur that a major motion picture that follows a hardboiled Pikachu detective was going to happen, I would have waved it off as another schoolyard myth. "Yeah, and I bet he'll find his partner Mew under a truck, too." But here we are roughly two decades later, with Deadline confirming Legendary Pictures and The Pokemon Company have signed a deal for a live-action Pokemon movie starring Detective Pikachu. We live in strange times.

What makes this story even weirder is the fact that The Detective Pikachu game hit the Japanese 3DS eShop in February of this year, but Nintendo has made no indication that it plans to release it elsewhere. So we could get the film adaptation but not the actual source material. I guess it's easier to turn into a movie than the international phenomenon that likely spurred the renewed film discussions, Pokemon Go.

Legendary previously produced the Warcraft movie, another film based off a popular video game franchise. I wouldn't expect them to share many narrative threads (unless Detective Pikachu's trying to avert a cataclysmic war between Pokemon and Man) but Legendary has some experience with putting together live action/CGI hybrid films, at least. If they can just lock down Danny DeVito for the lead role it should all work out fine.

You may like
  • Ash holding his fist up with Pikachu on his shoulders during Pokemon the Movie: I Choose You. The best Pokemon movies of all time, ranked from worst to very best
  • Pokemon Red and Blue key art "We had no idea this would be such a phenomenon": As Pokemon Red and Blue turn 30, here's how Game Freak created one of the most important RPGs of all time
  • A screenshot from Pokopia of a ghostly Pikachu called Peakychu Pokopia's new Pikachu form was dubbed "unfortunate Pikachu" by co-dev Koei Tecmo, but it comes from a place of love

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Connor Sheridan
Connor Sheridan
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Former GamesRadar+ News Writer

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and was formerly a staff writer at GamesRadar+.

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