After the massive, though short lived, success of Pokemon Go! and the positive reaction to Pokemon Sun and Moon, it’s been a pretty good year for fans of pocket monsters. It was no big surprise that Hollywood saw all of this and began work on another film to add to the already expansive mythos to this popular franchise. However, rather than challenging the firmly established animated movies, fans will be given a live action interpretation of Great Detective Pikachu, under the supervision of the newly named director Rob Letterman.
Letterman has cut his teeth on a bevy of family films during his career, from Shark Tale to the new Goosebumps. Looking at this filmography certainly makes it seem like this will be a significantly lighter film than the often philosophic animated features. One can assume that the mass market success of Pokemon Go! and the more approachable nature of Great Detective Pikachu helped lead to this more family friendly nature.
It is important to note that Great Detective Pikachu has not yet been released in North America, but man does it look cute. An intelligent electric mouse with a little hat solving crimes with his human buddy just makes me smile. One can only hope that all of this limelight will help motivate localization efforts on this adorable madness before too much more time has passed.
Letterman will be joining screenwriters Nicole Perlman and Alex Hirsch, who previously worked on Guardians of the Galaxy and Gravity Falls, respectively, so this could get pretty interesting. Universal Studios will be distributing the Detective Pikachu film in the west, with Toho doing so in the east.
There are a lot of ways this can go, but one this is sure. Pokemon are staying in the public eye for even longer now, and we’ll be seeing plenty of more young trainers as time goes on.
