Detective Pikachu could kick off a Pokemon cinematic universe

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

The start of summer movie season will have on hell of a lead in with AVENGERS: ENDGAME at the end of April, but the highly-anticipated POKEMON: DETECTIVE PIKACHU should have no trouble kicking off the season with a bang. The first live-action movie based on the beloved video game and anime franchise is poised to bring the house down when it arrives May 10, and studios Warner Bros. and Legendary would be silly to not be thinking about the future already. According to Legendary’s Ali Mendes, the possibility of a Pokémon cinematic universe is certainly in the cards as an entire established franchise is just waiting to be played with.

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IGN spoke with Mendes about the possibility of sequels, which in this day and age is all but guaranteed for a franchise like Pokémon, as long as audiences respond to the first outing. While it already seems like DETECTIVE PIKACHU will be a slam dunk, Mendes says they’re still waiting to see how this first movie does before they commit to future plans – but that doesn’t mean they haven’t already looked at the world of the games and shows for opportunities.

“[Pokémon is] such a rich universe. There are so many ways you can go inside of it. We're trying to get the first movie right, and then once we've done that, we'll see where we go from there, but absolutely. There are a lot of opportunities.”

She added that the actual count of known Pokémon alone makes the series ripe for exploration, with the count of pocket monsters growing with each new game (as it will later this year with Pokémon Sword and Shield).

“Even the Pokemon themselves, there are eight hundred of them. We're going to have a lot of them in [Pokemon: Detective Pikachu], but we want to play with all of them at some point.”

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While Mendes was a bit coy as all producers are when talking about the possibility of a franchise, it’s clear they’ve put some thought into where more movies could go after PIKACHU. There are tons of games and over two dozen seasons of shows based around the property out there to pull from, each with a wealth of characters that would make a cinematic universe à la the Marvel movies to grow.

And, to be honest, the movie is going to be a massive hit. Already box office analysts putting out some long-range forecasting are placing the movie on track for a $90 million opening weekend and possibly riding off that wave to a stellar $250 million finish. And that’s just domestically. The franchise is hugely popular around the world, and with it could blow up in China and push the total near, or over, $1 billion.

With that in mind, we shouldn’t be talking so much about the possibility of a Pokémon cinematic universe, but rather where one will go when this first movie makes a massive mint. The world is seemingly endless, with the games alone offering all different kinds of adventures to pull from, so all the producers need to do is choose.

POKEMON: DETECTIVE PIKACHU starring Ryan Reynolds, Justice Smith, Kathryn Newton, Suki Waterhouse, Ken Watanabe and more hits theaters May 10.