While many people were skeptical before it was released, 2019’s charming family movie Detective Pikachu ended up winning over even the coldest of hearts. Much like the universally beloved Paddington movies, Detective Pikachu did extremely well with blending a live-action human world with a furry, rotund and extremely cute central CGI character.
Bringing Pokemon into a noir detective movie also worked surprisingly well, and the cast including Justice Smith, Kathryn Newton, Bill Nighy, Ken Watanabe, Suki Waterhouse, and Rita Ora were also great. Ryan Reynolds managed to give one of his least obnoxious performances in years, as the voice (and motion capture performer) of Pikachu himself. And things got extremely weird in the final act.
Detective Pikachu ended up becoming the second highest-grossing video game movie, making $433 million. Therefore, its reasonable that fans were expecting a sequel, but things have been very quiet in the four years since. Well, we finally have good news, because Portlandia co-creator Jonathan Krisel is in negotiations to direct, and Chris Galletta will write the script to the sequel. It is also expected that Reynolds will return.
It’s not yet known if the sequel will continue to embrace the noir detective feel of the first movie, but if Detective is still in the name – there will need to be another super twisty mystery to solve. Justice Smith will presumably be back, although he’s been busy in the Jurassic World movies, and the upcoming Dungeons and Dragon movie.
Since Detective Pikachu came out in 2019, a huge number of video game adaptations – in both movies and TV – have gone into development. We’ve seen had the Sonic the Hedgehog movies, the upcoming Super Mario Bros and Five Nights at Freddy’s movies, and of course in the land of ‘prestige TV’ – The Last of Us. In development, there’s Gran Turismo, Minecraft, and Metal Gear Solid movies, and on TV – Mass Effect, Fallout, and much more.