After the world lost its mind when POKÉMON GO came out, the bidding war for the movie rights intensified. Legendary Pictures won that battle, and now it’s time to start speculating about all things relating to an inevitable movie. The world is waiting to hear who’s doing what, when it’s coming out and how much Charizard there is gonna be. Luckily, we don’t have to wait as long as we thought.
Variety is reporting that CAPTAIN MARVEL and GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY scribe Nicole Perlman and GRAVITY FALLS writer Alex Hirsch are "in negotiations" to write the script for the planned live-action film based on the DETECTIVE PIKACHU game.
The desire to see a live-action POKÉMON movie has never been greater, as the nostalgia-driven market went crazy for POKÉMON GO, which resulted in a 25% growth in Nintendo stock. Not to mention, the games for Nintendo's handheld systems are still insanely popular, with the new versions, POKÉMON SUN and POKÉMON MOON, coming out later this year.
It's surprising that Perlman would sign on for such a big project, as she is still working on CAPTAIN MARVEL with INSIDE OUT writer Meg LeFauve, so one would assume she's a litttle tied up. Meanwhile, the cult-favorite GRAVITY FALLS just had its series finale this year on Disney XD, so Hirsch is probably free and clear.
The only way I could imagine this movie working is if has a self-referential, meta humor vibe to it. I mean, there’s no real way to take a movie called DETECTIVE PIKACHU seriously. That being said, Perlman and Hirsch would probably do a bang-up job. Perlman proved herself ten times over with GUARDIANS, while GRAVITY FALLS was written, produced, storyboarded and acted in by Hirsch, and the show has since recieved critical acclaim. So, yeah, he sounds pretty capable.
This is just the tip of what will probably be a massive POKÉMON movie iceberg, and it’s a pretty promising tip at that. The key to any good movie starts with a good script. If these two writers succeed they will receive all the praise and treasure in the land. But shall they fail, they will know the nerd community's greatest wrath!
The film is set to begin production next year, according to Deadline.