The live-action
Detective Pikachu finally released last week, getting mostly critical praise for the accurate depiction of the
Pokémon world, but getting some criticism for not taking any more risks — which is actually fair criticism, as well as fair praise.
In a recent interview on the
Blank Check podcast,
Detective Pikachu writers Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit revealed what it was like to write a
Pokémon movie that is based on a spin-off, instead of the core
Pokémon titles; specifically for an origin story, which could've been based on the Red and Blue versions of
Pokémon.
According to the writers, the equivallent of kickstarting the live-action
Pokémon universe with
Detective Pikachu is like starting a
Super Mario Bros. live-action universe with
Dr. Mario or "
writing a Star Wars movie without a lightsaber, or the Force."
They also mention that they got the
Detective Pikachu video game script before the title had even been localized outside of Japan, which definitely didn't help when trying to come up with ideas for this new live-action movie that wasn't based on the core series of games.
The writers not hired to adapt
Pokémon Red/Blue, basically because they were only given the
Detective Pikachu rights so that the movie to be different, since they didn't want to tell the story of Ash from the Pokémon cartoon again.
One of the things that definitely help is the fact that
Pokémon is a household name, so people were already familiar with the series, even if
Detective Pikachu is a spin-off story set in the world of
Pokémon. For more on the interview, be sure to check the over 2-hour-long podcast with Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit below.
The first-ever live-action Pokémon movie, “POKÉMON Detective Pikachu” stars Ryan Reynolds as the titular character in the first-ever live-action movie based on the iconic face of the global Pokémon brand—one of the world’s most popular, multi-generation entertainment properties and most successful media franchises of all time.
Detective Pikachu is currently playing in theaters.