After spending more than two decades of entertaining fans young and old through video games, TV shows, animated movies and a card game, the Pokemon franchise is finally making the jump to live action through Detective Pikachu. Based off the Great Detective Pikachu video game (which was initially only released in Japan, but will finally be released in North America, Europe and Australia in March), this live action Pokemon movie has been assembling its cast over the last couple months, and the latest two additions are Love Actually's Bill Nighy and You're The Worst's Chris Geere.
While there weren't any details provided about who Bill Nighy and Chris Geere will be playing in Detective Pikachu, thanks to THR, we're now aware that they're part of the main cast. Along with playing Billy Mack in Love Actually, Nighy's notable credits include Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Hot Fuzz, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows -- Part 1, The Best Marigold Hotel and The Limehouse Golem. As for Chris Geere, he can currently be seen playing Jimmy Shive-Overly in the FXX series You're The Worst, and his resume also includes After Earth and Waterloo Road.
Like the video game that came before, Detective Pikachu will follow a boy who goes adventuring with one of these electrically-charged mouse creatures. However, while this Pikachu isn't as strong as others of his kind, he makes up for that with his smarts, which he puts to good use solving mysteries. Oh, and Detective Pikachu speaks like a normal human rather than just repeats some variation of his name like most other Pokemon. When the father of Detective Pikachu's male protagonist, Tim Goodman, goes missing, Tim must team up with the eponymous Pokemon and a junior investigative reporter named Lucy to find him. It's hard to say how Bill Nighy and Chris Geere will fit into the story, though I wonder if Geere is playing a trainer or gym leader who crosses paths with the main characters. As for Nighy, I'm crossing my fingers that he's playing Professor Oak, but I realize that the chances of that being the case are slim since Detective Pikachu isn't connected in any way to the Pokemon anime or original video games.
Along with Billy Nighy and Chris Geere, Detective Pikachu's cast includes Ryan Reynolds as the voice of Pikachu, The Get Down's Justice Smith as Tim Goodman, Big Little Lies' Kathryn Newton as Lucy and Godzilla's Ken Watanabe as Detective Yoshida. Goosebumps director Rob Letterman is helming the adaptation, and the script's contributors included Letterman, Nicole Perlman, Eric Pearson and Tom McCarthy.
Detective Pikachu will be released in theaters on May 10, 2019. To find out what movies are hitting theaters sooner, scan through our 2018 release schedule.
