Earlier this week, Warner Bros. dropped the first trailer for the upcoming live-action Pokémon movie Detective Pikachu online. To say that it wasn’t what some were expecting? That might be a bit of understatement. While the film is clearly going to be family friendly, I’d say that the trailer leaned a bit more mature than I had imagined it would. Overall, the response to the first look at the live-action Pokémon film was pretty positive and has me wondering if this could be the beginning of something bigger. While we obviously shouldn’t get too ahead of ourselves here, could Detective Pikachu hatch an entire Pokémon cinematic universe?
For the big Hollywood studios, franchises are key these days. While Warner Bros. doesn’t exactly have a shortage of them, I can’t see the Fantastic Beasts series lasting that much longer and there’s only so much that you can do when it comes to properties like Kong and Godzilla. When it comes to Pokémon though, there’s a lot of routes that the studio can take to expand the franchise while making it appeal to audiences of all ages. Mix it up a bit. Choose some Poke balls filled with different genres to explore. Much As Detective Pikachu seems to be an action-thriller set in the Pokémon universe, let’s take these characters and throw them into adventures that feel different from what’s come before. Perhaps an action-adventure like the Indiana Jones films or Tomb Raider where we explore an ancient Pokémon temple? Or even a heist film where the film’s protagonists have to recruit a team of different Pokémon types in order to achieve their goals?
Much like superhero cinematic universes, there’s a lot of toys and ideas to be played with here. However, something that the franchise should likely do it’s best to avoid as being a focus for a film is trainer battles. I’m not saying that we should never see a Pokémon film explore that aspect of their universe. But it might be in Warner Bros. and Legendary’s best interest to explore other routes without relying too heavily on what we’ve already seen plenty of in both the cartoons and animated films. While fans of the property are sure to be foaming at the mouth a bit for trainer battles on the big screen, casual fans and the general audience might be less likely to remain interested for too long. Or maybe that’s just me. (In all honesty, it’s probably just me.)
Pokémon is a property – that if done right – could have appeal to audiences of all ages both domestically and overseas. I’m going to very curious about the box office numbers for Detective Pikachu but if they’re as big as I’m expecting, I’d imagine that we will be revisiting this topic sooner than later. While Warner Bros. and Legendary don’t likely want to count their Togepi’s before they’re fully hatched here, do you think a Pokémon cinematic universe could work? Let us know your thoughts on the subject in the comments section below.