Ash Ketchum is essentially the face of the Pokemon franchise and so it makes sense that he would receive the spotlight in a live-action movie, right? Well, not according to Legendary because Justice Smith is going to be playing a newly created character called Tim Goodman who goes on a mission to find his father, something which results in him crossing paths with titular Pokemon, Detective Pikachu.
During a recent interview, director Rob Letterman attempted to explain the decision not to include Ash in proceedings, noting that he's already been the focus of so many animated features, it just made sense to use someone new and tell a different sort of story (which should probably be evident from the fact that Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds will be voicing this pretty weird new talking version of Pikachu).
"The Pokémon Company, they’ve already made many, many movies of Ash, and they came to Legendary with this idea of using a new character. So when I came on board, I was pitched this character of Detective Pikachu, and I fell in love with the story behind it. It’s a really great story. It was something with a lot of heart, and it was just very unique. And because there’s already been so much work done with Ash, for the first live-action movie I thought it was a really good idea to try something new with a new character but bake it into the universe of Pokémon. So it still follows all the rules, and we get to see a lot of our favourite things."
Letterman went on to say that while he has a soft spot for Generation I Pokemon, he intends to include a "good spread" from the 802 available to him and compared the special effects in the movie to those which have been used to bring Rocket Raccoon to life in Guardians of the Galaxy. That's definitely going to be interesting to see as will whether or not this movie can actually exceed expectations.