Fresh off revealing Ryan Reynolds to be the voice of the iconic character Pikachu, Universal Pictures has set a release date for
Legendary Entertainment's upcoming live-action Pokemon movie Detective Pikachu. The film will debut in theaters in the United States on Friday, May 10, 2019, the company announced today.
Detective Pikachu is the first live-action film based on the popular
Pokemon franchise, which was first introduced in Japan in 1996. Since then, the franchise has become a global phenomenon, with
more than 300 million video games sold worldwide, 21.5 billion TCG cards shipped to 74 countries, and an animated series spanning 19 seasons. Rob Letterman is helming
Detective Pikachu, with a script penned by Nicole Perlman and Alex Hirsch.
Reynolds
will portray the franchise's most iconic Pokemon, Pikachu - or "Detective Pikachu" in the film - who teams up with the lead human character,
played by Justice Smith (
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom), in search for Smith's character's father who is kidnapped. Kathryn Newton (
Big Little Lies) is
set to play the female lead, Lucy, "a sassy journalist" who joins the two on their adventure. Lucy has a Psyduck as her sidekick so we'll presumably see that Pokemon in the film as well.
With an official May 10, 2019 release date for
Detective Pikachu the hype train should start boarding soon.