Alec Bojalad

Jan 28, 2019

Legendary Entertainment has ordered a script for a Detective Pikachu sequel months before the original debuts.

How are we gonna catch ’em all if we can’t even move past Pikachu?

Legendary Entertainment has cut a deal with screenwriter Oren Uziel (Sonic The Hedgehog, 22 Jump Street) to develop a script for an unnamed Detective Pikachu sequel, according to The Wrap. If you can’t quite recall how the original Detective Pikachu film did at the box office to warrant a sequel, that’s because it doesn’t come out until 10th May.

That, my friends, is real Poké power.

Detective Pikachu, and presumably its unnamed sequel as well, features a mix of live-action actors and CGI. It will take place in a world much like ours but that also happens to be populated by Pokémon. Like in the original game series, the subsequent anime, and popular Pokémon Go mobile game, the Pokémon of Detective Pikachu are colourful pocket monsters who live alongside humanity and can be captured inside Pokéballs and forced to do battle. 

Ryan Reynolds stars as the titular Detective Pikachu, a little Poké buddy who wants to be a detective rather than a pawn in battle. He teams up with human Tim (Justice Smith) to help solve the mystery of who killed Tim’s father. The twist is that Tim can understand Pikachu’s “Pika pika” rantings in English.

Detective Pikachu is based on the 2016 videogame Great Detective Pikachu and is directed by Rob Letterman. Alex Hirsch and Nicole Perlman penned the script and Ken Watanabe, Rita Ora, Bill Nighy, Chris Geere and Kathryn Newton join Reynolds and Smith in the cast.

Legendary bought the international movie rights to the Pokémon franchise back in 2016 and whatever they paid for it could turn out to be a real bargain. Naturally, there have been rumours that Legendary and its American distribution partner Universal have plans for a full live-action Pokémon movie, but for now we’ve got all the Detective Pikachu we can handle.