After entertaining the public through video games, a trading card game, a long-running anime and numerous tie-in animated movies, the Pokemon franchise is finally making the jump to live action. Rather than adapt Ash Ketchum's journey to catch 'em all across the Kanto region, the upcoming Pokemon movie will instead adapt the Great Detective Pikachu video game, which has only been released in Japan. This adaptation has already gathered its two human leads, and it's just been announced that Ryan Reynolds will voice the movie's primary, electrically-charged mouse creature.
THR dropped the news that Ryan Reynolds will voice the crime-solving Pikachu in the live action Pokemon movie, which is simply titled Detective Pikachu. The role will also said to be "motion capture in nature." Reynolds joins a cast that includes The Get Down's Justice Smith and Big Little Lies' Kathryn Newton. Reynolds was one of four actors previously said to be in consideration to play Pikachu, the other three being Hugh Jackman, Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson. There's no word yet on if Reynolds' Pikachu will break the fourth wall Deadpool-style, but you can guarantee that he'll be dropping wisecracks left and right.
Along with Ryan Reynolds' casting, this report also shared some plot details that had been rumored. Supposedly Detective Pikachu will begin when Justice Smith's character's father is kidnapped, and in order to track him down, this lad will team up with this special Pikachu. While Reynolds' Pikachu isn't as powerful as others of his kind, he is more intelligent and has a knack for tracking things down, hence why he's adopted the investigator persona. And like the original Detective Pikachu, Reynolds' Pikachu can speak like a human, although it remains to be seen if the movie will make it so that only the boy can understand him or if everyone else will be able to as well. Regardless, these two will be joined by Kathryn Newton's character, who is a "sassy journalist." It was previously reported that she would be working on a story involving missing Pokemon and that she'll be joined by a Psyduck.
Goosebumps director Rob Letterman has been tasked with helming Detective Pikachu, while Gravity Falls' Alex Hirsch and Guardians of the Galaxy's Nicole Perlman penned the script. Production is set to begin in mid-January, so you can be sure that more casting announcements are on the way. However, unless Detective Pikachu throws in another Pokemon who can speak normally, expect Ryan Reynolds' Pikachu to be the only one of these Pocket Monsters to be capable of saying more than just their own name or other weird sounds, as is the norm for these critters.
Detective Pikachu hasn't been assigned a release date, so stay tuned to CinemaBlend for that update and more information concerning the Pokemon movie. In the meantime, feel free to browse through our 2018 premiere guide to you can plan your trips to the theater over the next year accordingly.
