1 Dec – After much anticipation, Legendary Entertainment has unveiled that "Goosebumps" director Rob Letterman will be helming its live-action Pokémon movie, "Detective Pikachu". Letterman will be directing from a script penned by Nicole Perlman and Alex Hirsch, according to Deadline. The movie is inspired by a recent video game titled "Great Detective Pikachu". In the videogame, a talking Pikachu with the help of a human boy named Tim Goodman attempts to solve a Pokémon-related mystery around the city. Although the detective Pikachu shares similar traits with its original Pokémon series counterpart, one thing it has in addition is the ability to solve crimes. The synopsis for the movie has yet to be released and it remains to be seen whether or not Letterman will choose to stick with the videogame's plot.
Nonetheless, it will be exciting to see how the director will helm the film given that he has built his reputation on directing kid-friendly adventures like "Shark Tale" and "Monsters vs. Aliens", and will also be directing Warner Bros.' "Dungeons and Dragons". Legendary made the movie deal with Japanese-based The Pokemon Co back in July when the world was hit by the Pokémon Go craze, a location-based augmented reality game where users use real life locations to catch Pokémons and become Pokémon masters. Though, of course, Pokémon has been a pop culture phenomenon since it was first introduced in Japan in 1996. It has sold 279 million video games worldwide with 21.5 billion cards shipped to 74 countries, and spawned several animated movies as well as animated series spanning 19 seasons.