Nintendo Pokemon The series has had a powerful hold on pop culture for decades, and it’s doubtful that will change anytime soon. Most of that power comes from the video and collectible card games, along with the eternally anime in progress and the movies and shows that came from it. So how do you create one of the biggest gaming properties? larger? You make the big, bold leap to Hollywood.
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First released in Japan on May 3, 2019 and then the following week in the US. detective pikachu It was the first real action Pokemon film, and also Nintendo’s first video game film since Super Mario Bros. If anyone ever thought Pokemon If they had a big-budget movie, they probably didn’t think it would come courtesy of Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures, much less based on a 2016 spinoff game where the brand’s mascot Pikachu is a private eye voiced by Ryan Reynolds. Yes, all the monsters looked impressively real and tangible in the way fans had made them. always dreamed, but having Deadpool as the protagonist could have undermined everything. Was this going to work?
The answer turned out to be “yes”: Detective Pikachu It earned fairly positive reviews and grossed $450.1 million worldwide. At that time, it had been the highest-grossing video game movie of its time, at least until Super Mario movie It knocked him off his pedestal last year. If the world hadn’t been hit by the pandemic and Hollywood strikes in the 2020s, By Now, we’d probably already have a sequel; portlandia co-creator Jonathan Krisel He was tapped to direct it last year working from a script by Chris Galetta, but it looks like it’s at least two years away, at the earliest. (Leaving as Avengers: Endgame was still in theaters probably wasn’t the right decision either.) As it stands, it’s a well-regarded film that made a good impression in the video game movie space whose future was buried beneath some bad luck.
At the same time, it seems to have had a decent impact when it comes to Pokemon transmedia output. The animated It was always going to persist whether it did well or not, but the film’s success has certainly helped open Nintendo’s mind to the possibilities. of what this franchise could be. Without it, we probably wouldn’t have Pokémon Janitor or the original drama series Pocket ni Bōken wo Tsumekonde, which deals with the scope and impact of Pokemon instead of being set in their world. And this is just what we know about a Pokémon Direct or two from now on, you may learn that Nintendo has plans to create a cinematic universe along the lines of what Paramount is doing with Sonic the Hedgehog.
Compared to other video game adaptations such as Fall and The last of us or even Arcane, It wouldn’t be bad to feel like Detective Pikachu has been overlooked. His time in the sun will surely come when the sequel arrives. In that sense, it’s like the anime: Hopefully what comes next will be an evolution that builds on the winning formula of its predecessor. And if not, well, at least I have a video of Pikachu dancing to brighten the day.
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