After decades of popularity in video games, anime and trading cards, Pokemon is finally getting the live action treatment in the near future. Thanks to the incredible popularity of the Pokemon Go mobile game, The Pokemon Company and Legendary Entertainment officially partnered up for the live action film franchise. Many were surprised when it was announced the movie would be an adaptation of the Detective Pikachu game rather than the TV series, but for those who weren't pleased by that creative choice, they may find their interest piqued with the addition of writers Nicole Perlman and Alex Hirsch.
According to Variety, Nicole Perlman and Alex Hirsch are currently in negotiations to pen the Pokemon movie screenplay. Perlman hails from the world of Marvel, having written 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy with director James Gunn, and is now co-writing 2019's Captain Marvel with Inside Out's Meg LeFauve. Hirsch created the Disney XD animated series Gravity Falls, and his other credits include The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack and Fish Hooks. As you can tell, they come from different worlds of fiction, but if they're hired for the Pokemon movie, their combined experiences may be just the thing to crack the Pocket Monsters' live action outing.
Rumblings of a live action Pokemon movie surfaced earlier this year when it was reported that the franchise was looking at various studios to helm the project. Then Pokemon Go took the world by storm early last month, and while spokespeople originally said they wanted to focus on the mobile game before tackling a movie, evidently this success was the final push to getting the movie greenlit. It makes sense, as Pokemon is experiencing its biggest popularity surge in years, so now is the prime time to take advantage of bringing these creatures to the big screen.
Although Pokemon has been most at home in video games and on TV screens since 1996, it's no stranger to the big screen. Pokemon: The First Movie continued the adventures of Ash, Misty, Brock and others in 1998 (1999 in the United States). Four theatrical movies followed after that, with every movie release since being direct-to-video. However, as previously stated, this live action Pokemon movie will not be based on the anime. Instead, it will adapt the Nintendo 3DS game Great Detective Pikachu, which followed an intelligent Pikachu (the franchise's mascot) who solves mysteries Sherlock Holmes-style with his human companion. The game has yet to be released in the United States.
The live action Pokemon movie is being "fast-tracked" for production sometime in 2017, which means fans should expect to see in theaters at the earliest in 2018, if not later. Let us know if you approve of Nicole Perlman and Alex Hirsch penning the adventure in the comments below.
