While movies based on video games have often had rough box office results, Detective Pikachu was, at the time, a somewhat rare unqualified win. With success like it had, becoming one of the most successful video game movies at the global box office, one might have expected a Pikachu sequel to have happened by now. There are many upcoming video game movies and series, but nothing from this franchise. Not only have we never seen Detective Pikachu 2 yet, but despite reports the movie was happening, one of its main stars doesn’t know anything about the sequel.
Justice Smith played the human lead character alongside Ryan Reynolds voicing the titular Detective Pikachu. Last year it was reported that Jonathan Krisel had been tapped to direct the long-awaited sequel. However, even though 10 months have passed since that news, Smith, who has admitted he's frustrated no Detective Pikachu sequel has been forthcoming, recently told ScreenRant that he’s heard nothing about the movie, but he’s waiting for the call. Smith said…
I have not heard of any movement. I mean, I know what was released online, but no one has called me. So I'm just waiting for that call.
Even though a director had reportedly been brought in to help the Detective Pikachu follow-up, nothing else had been nailed down, so things may be still, even though we’re approaching the fifth anniversary of the first movie’s release, still very early. Justice Smith is not officially on board any sequel, and at last report, neither was Ryan Reynolds. Chris Galleta was working on the script, but we don’t know right now if there is one.
There are, of course, a couple of different possibilities as to what’s going on. Either, things are still so early that there’s no point trying to contract the cast at this point, or the sequel is going in a different direction, and things are further along than we think, but with a new cast of characters. The latter seems less likely. Ryan Reynolds himself would almost need to be part of any sequel, and bringing him back without the resort of the associated characters seems unlikely.
At the same time, Detective Pikachu's ending left its story in a very different place than where it started, so simply picking up and “doing it all again” is a bit trickier from a story standpoint. So doing something a little different might make more sense.
Detective Pikachu is still the second-highest-grossing movie based on a video game ever when it comes to the global box office. It’s now dwarfed by the massive success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie last year, but it’s still an impressive accolade. On the one hand, it’s probably a good thing that a sequel wasn’t rushed to screens just to cash in on the first movie’s success. However, we’re now at the point where audiences may have moved on so if this sequel is ever going to happen, it should probably happen soon.
