User:KTMWikipedia8000/Detective Pikachu

Pokémon Detective Pikachu is a 2019 urban fantasy mystery film directed by Rob Letterman, who co-wrote the screenplay with Dan Hernandez, Benji Samit and Derek Connolly from a story by Hernandez, Samit and Nicole Perlman. Based on the Pokémon franchise created by Satoshi Tajiri and the 2016 video game Detective Pikachu, the film is produced by Warner Bros. Pictures, Legendary Pictures and The Pokémon Company, in association with Toho Co., Ltd., and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures in a joint venture production. It is the first live-action adaptation, in the franchise. The film stars Ryan Reynolds as the voice and facial motion capture of the titular character, with Justice Smith, Kathryn Newton, Suki Waterhouse, Omar Chaparro, Chris Geere, Ken Watanabe and Bill Nighy in live-action roles.

The film was released in Japan on May 3, 2019, and in the United States on May 10, 2019, distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures in RealD 3D and Dolby Cinema. It is the first Pokémon film to be released theatrically in the United States by Warner Bros. since Pokémon 3: The Movie (2000), and with a PG rating from the MPAA, it is also the first Pokémon film released in the United States not to receive a G rating by the group. Detective Pikachu received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the creature designs and Reynolds' performance but criticized the plot as being standard. It is considered to be the best-reviewed live-action film adaptation of a video game, based on reviews aggregated on Rotten Tomatoes. The film received a positive response from audiences polled by CinemaScore and PostTrak.

Plot
Tim Goodman is a 21-year-old insurance salesman who had given up Pokémon training due to the death of his mother and the absence of his father, Harry. While hanging out with his friend Jack, Tim learns that Harry has presumably died while investigating a case. He travels to Ryme City, a metropolis that outlaws Pokémon fighting and pushes the bonds of humans and Pokémon alike, to collect Harry's assets. Tim also meets Lucy Stevens, a fluff columnist who wants to be a reporter and is suspicious of Harry's death, and her Psyduck. While reminiscing in his apartment, Tim encounters a deerstalker-clad Pikachu that can speak and only he can somehow understand. They are attacked by a party of Aipom under the influence of a purple gas that Tim accidentally released, but they both escape.

They take shelter at a café where Pikachu reveals that he is an amnesiac detective who was Harry's partner and that they were investigating a case together when Harry disappeared. Harry's deerstalker cap was left on Pikachu as the only known clues to his identity and Harry's whereabouts. They look for Lucy who reveals that while investigating, she discovered that Harry was once at Ryme Wharf and set out to find clues. Tim and Pikachu interrogate a Mr. Mime who directs them to an illegal underground fighting arena owned by Sebastian, whose Charizard Pikachu had fought before. Sebastian demands a rematch, but Pikachu cannot remember his own moves and Sebastian gives Charizard the same mysterious gas labeled "R". While Tim attempts to save Pikachu, Sebastian accidentally releases R and the entire stadium gets affected alerting the authorities, but not before revealing to Tim that he got R from "the doctor".

Tim argues with police lieutenant Hideo Yoshida that Harry may be alive, but Yoshida shows him the video of Harry's crash, explaining that it would have been impossible. Soon, Tim and Pikachu are met by Ms. Norman who takes them to see Ryme City's benefactor Howard Clifford, who had once tried to cure his ailing condition and instead created the humanitarian city. He shows him more revealing footage of Harry surviving the attack, apparently caused by the recently-escaped Mewtwo, but that he was taken away by the Pokémon, leaving Pikachu with amnesia. Howard tells them to watch out for his son Roger who he claims is in control of his company and the city. With this new information, Tim and Pikachu recruit Lucy and Psyduck.

The group breaks into the lab facility Harry was investigating, learning that Dr. Ann Laurent, the doctor Sebastian mentioned, was experimenting on Mewtwo, who had been recaptured after escaping 20 years earlier, and had apparently hired Harry to aid them. They are soon attacked by several Greninja who chase them out of the building but are fended off by Psyduck. They then escape a field of colossal Torterra, but Pikachu is gravely injured. Tim manages to communicate to a Bulbasaur and takes Pikachu to a clearing in the forest where they are greeted by Mewtwo, who heals Pikachu and attempts to reveal its intent but is captured by Roger. Thinking that he betrayed Harry to a vengeful Mewtwo, Pikachu leaves Tim while the others return to Ryme City to warn Howard.

Pikachu comes across the area where Harry crashed his car and finds proof that it was not Mewtwo who attacked, but the Greninja. Tim reaches Howard, but learns too late that he intends to transfer his consciousnesses into Mewtwo and use R so that the Pokémon can become docile enough for him to fuse them with their owners, thus allowing humans to evolve within their Pokémon. As Howard in Mewtwo's body releases the gas into the world, Pikachu arrives and finally summons his electricity powers to battle Mewtwo. Tim, meanwhile finds out that "Roger" was actually Ms. Norman who was really a Ditto; the real Roger having been tied up and hidden. Tim subdues Ditto with R while Pikachu fends Mewtwo long enough for Tim to free Mewtwo from Howard's control.

Mewtwo restores everyone to normal while Howard is arrested. Roger is impressed with Lucy and hires her as a full-time reporter. Mewtwo then reveals that Harry was in fact fused with Pikachu in order to heal him; the fuse erased Harry's memory while keeping his consciousness within Pikachu. After Mewtwo unfuses them with the help of Tim, a fully-revived Harry offers Tim the chance to return home, but Tim decides to stay in order to learn how to become a detective and spend time with him and Pikachu.

Cast

 * Ryan Reynolds as the voice and facial motion capture of Detective Pikachu, a world-class detective and exceptionally smart Pikachu whom only Tim can understand. Reynolds also portrays Harry Goodman, Tim's missing father, a veteran Ryme City police detective. Ikue Ōtani provides Detective Pikachu's normal voice as heard by everyone other than Tim.
 * Justice Smith as Tim Goodman, a former Pokémon trainer looking for his missing father; he is also Detective Pikachu's partner, and the only person capable of hearing him speak. Max Fincham portrays a young Tim Goodman.
 * Kathryn Newton as Lucy Stevens, a junior reporter who is accompanied by a Psyduck.
 * Bill Nighy as Howard Clifford, the disabled visionary behind Ryme City and founder of Clifford Enterprises.
 * Ken Watanabe as Detective Hideo Yoshida, a veteran Ryme City police lieutenant and friend of Harry who is accompanied by a Snubbull.
 * Chris Geere as Roger Clifford, Howard's son and president of Clifford Enterprises.
 * Suki Waterhouse as a modified Ditto, Howard's accomplice who poses as his assistant Ms. Norman.
 * Omar Chaparro as Sebastian, a Pokémon trainer who runs a battle arena for Pokémon and is accompanied by a Charizard.
 * Rita Ora as Dr. Ann Laurent, a scientist for Clifford Enterprises experimenting on Mewtwo.
 * Karan Soni as Jack, Tim's friend who is a Pokémon trainer.
 * Josette Simon as "Grams", Tim's grandmother who took care of him after the death of Tim's mother.

Additionally, Diplo appears as himself, the Pokémon universe version of the DJ who performs at Sebastian's Pokémon arena. Ryoma Takeuchi, who provides the Japanese dubbed voice of Tim, has a cameo as a Pokémon trainer in a video Tim watches. Mewtwo's voice is provided simultaneously by Rina Hoshino and Kotaro Watanabe.

Development
The film was officially announced in July 2016 although Legendary Pictures were reported to be in talks as early as April of that year. The reason for adapting Detective Pikachu came from The Pokémon Company and Letterman's desire to make a movie that focused on another character besides Ash Ketchum, the protagonist of the Pokémon animated TV series. On the premise, Letterman stated, "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 onboard, I was pitched this character of Detective Pikachu, and I fell in love with the story behind it." The idea of talking Pokémon originated from an early concept for the 1990s TV series, but was scrapped when the original game developer Game Freak was unsatisfied with the concept, before the idea was revived for the 2016 Detective Pikachu spin-off game. Before filming began, Letterman said that they "spent a year designing all the characters ahead of shooting so that we could get it all right."

Initially, Universal Pictures would handle the distribution outside Japan, while Toho would handle the Japanese distribution. On August 16, 2016, Nicole Perlman and Alex Hirsch were in negotiations with Legendary to write the screenplay. Later revisions were provided by Eric Pearson, Thomas McCarthy, Derek Connolly, Dan Hernandez, Benji Samit and director Rob Letterman. On November 30, 2016, Legendary hired Rob Letterman to direct the film, which the studio had fast-tracked for production to start in 2017.

On July 25, 2018, Warner Bros. announced they had taken over worldwide distribution duties (except in Japan and China) from Universal, with the release date unchanged.

The film was originally set to be solely distributed by Warner Bros. before Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures obtained the film's distribution rights in the wake of Disney's acquisition of Time Warner on March 20, 2019.

Casting
In November 2017, Justice Smith was cast in the lead human role, with Kathryn Newton cast to costar after an intense session of reading and testing actresses who would appear opposite Smith. Newton beat out Natalia Dyer, Haley Lu Richardson, and Katherine Langford for the role. In December 2017, Ryan Reynolds was cast in the titular role to be portrayed via motion-capture. Other actors considered for the role were Danny DeVito, Dwayne Johnson, Mark Wahlberg and Hugh Jackman. In January 2018, with production commencing, Ken Watanabe, Bill Nighy and Chris Geere joined the cast. In February 2018, Suki Waterhouse and Rita Ora joined the cast. In April 2018, Omar Chaparro joined the cast.

When the film's Japanese release was announced on November 29, 2018, Ryoma Takeuchi was confirmed to voice Tim Goodman in the Japanese dub. Takeuchi also has a brief cameo appearance in the movie itself as a Pokémon trainer. On March 20, 2019, it was confirmed that Marie Iitoyo will voice Lucy Stevens, and Ken Watanabe will reprise his role as Detective Yoshida in the Japanese dub. When the film premiered in Japan on May 3, 2019, Hidetoshi Nishijima was confirmed to have voiced Detective Pikachu in the Japanese dub.

Filming
Principal production began on January 15, 2018, in London, England and Denver, Colorado. Nine days later, Legendary announced that principal photography had officially begun. The press release revealed that Alex Hirsch was no longer involved with the final draft of the script and that Rob Letterman, Benji Samit, Dan Hernandez, Derek Connolly and Nicole Perlman were the only ones credited. Much of the on set interaction and vocal reference for Pikachu was filled in by Jon Bailey. However, all of his dialogue was dubbed over by Ryan Reynolds. Principal photography concluded on May 1, 2018. Some filming was done at Shepperton Studios, Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden, Minley Woods in Hampshire, rural areas of Colorado; just outside Denver and Colorado Springs, and Scotland.

The film's cinematographer, John Mathieson, noted that, like his other films, Detective Pikachu was shot on traditional film, in contrast to most other contemporary films which are shot digitally. He says the use of traditional film helps make it "look more realistic."

Post-production
The film's visual effects were provided by the Moving Picture Company (MPC), Framestore, Image Engine, Rodeo FX, and Instinctual VFX. Much of the visual effects were provided by the same team behind The Jungle Book, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and The Lion King. Letterman compared the visual effects to the character of Rocket Raccoon from Guardians of the Galaxy. "They're technically, some of the most high-end visual effects in the world... It's completely photo-realistic, like they are alive and in the movie." Additional audio recording of a supposed fight between Detective Pikachu and Charizard was recorded at the Pokémon World Championships 2018.

Music
Henry Jackman provides the score for the film. Kygo and Rita Ora appear on the soundtrack with the lead single titled "Carry On". The song and the music video were released on April 19, 2019. Japanese hip hop group Honest Boyz also collaborated with Lil Uzi Vert to make another song for the film, titled "Electricity", produced by Pharrell Williams.

Marketing
In early November 2018, with the film in post-production phase, a screen test was held for an incomplete version of the film, which drew considerably positive reactions from the test audience, with praise directed towards the script, visual effects, and Reynolds' performance.

The film's first official trailer was revealed on November 12, 2018. Warner Bros. revealed versions of the trailer in English along with dubbed versions in Spanish, French, Italian and German. It soon became the top trending video on YouTube, and a top trending topic on Twitter, while inspiring numerous internet memes and reaction videos. Within 24 hours, the high-concept trailer amassed more than 100million views across multiple online and social media platforms. On YouTube, the English-language trailer garnered over 1million likes within two days, and 1.22million likes within five days. On Twitter, it set a new record of over 400,000 mentions on the day of the trailer reveal. A second trailer, featuring the appearance of Mewtwo, was released on February 26, 2019. Prior to the trailer's release, Ryan Reynolds uploaded a video onto his YouTube channel that features interviews from himself and his wife, Blake Lively, on the previous day. A third trailer was released on April 22, 2019.

On November 30, 2018, Letterman, Smith, and Newton appeared on stage during the Tokyo Comic-Con event for a full announcement of the Japanese release. On March 15, 2019, it was revealed that Legendary will release a graphic novel based on the film.

On May 7, 2019, days before the film's scheduled release in the United States, a Warner Bros. YouTube channel named "Inspector Pikachu" uploaded a video purporting to be a bootleg recording of the film. Spanning nearly 1.75 hours in length, the video shows the production logo sequences of the companies involved, followed by a scene from the film featuring Tim Goodman, before spending the remainder of its runtime depicting Detective Pikachu performing aerobics to an upbeat, 1980s-inspired synthwave tune. Reynolds aided in the prank, posting it on Twitter as if he was alerting Warner Bros. and the film's official accounts about both the "Inspector Pikachu" Twitter account and the alleged bootleg upload on YouTube. The video, which Paul Tassi of Forbes described as "brilliant", received 4.2 million views in less than a day.

Box office
, Pokémon Detective Pikachu has grossed $20.7 million in the United States and Canada, and $41.4 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $62.1 million, against a production budget of $150 million.

In the United States and Canada, the film was released alongside Tolkien, Poms and The Hustle, is projected to gross $55–70 million from 4,100 theaters in its opening weekend. The film made $20.1 million on its first day (including 5.7 million from Thursday night previews), both the most ever for a film based on a video game.

In other territories, the film is projected to debut $90–120 million from 62 countries, including $40–60 million in China. In Japan, the film opened at number three, grossing ¥948 million ($8.6 million) in its opening weekend. Prior to its worldwide release, the film grossed US$21 million from openings and previews in several international markets, including Japan, through Thursday. On Friday, the film had an opening day gross of US$16.4 million in China.

Critical response
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 64% approval rating based on 189 reviews, with an average rating of 5.91/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Pokémon Detective Pikachu may not take its wonderfully bizarre premise as far as it could have, but this offbeat adaptation should catch most – if not all – of the franchise's fans." The film holds the highest Rotten Tomatoes rating of all video game film adaptations. Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 52 out of 100, based on 43 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A–" on an A+ to F scale, while general audiences polled by PostTrak gave it 4 out of 5 stars.

Scott Mendelson of Forbes called the film "the best video game movie ever" and wrote, "Detective Pikachu works because it's a good movie first and a promising franchise-starter or a brand cash-in second. It's a real film, rooted in character arcs and narrative twists with just enough raw emotion and personal stakes to make the significant special effects moments matter beyond spectacle." CNET's Sean Keane also called the film the best ever based on a video game, praising Reynolds and calling it an "entertaining romp with plenty of heart".

Writing for The Hollywood Reporter, Michael Rechtshaffen said, "Although the script... tends to compartmentalize the comedy, action and emotional bits rather than organically blending them all together, Letterman's energetic direction manages to hold everything aloft." In a middling review for TheWrap, Alonso Duralde wrote that the "live-action-plus-animation take on the popular game feels both ambitious and lazy, frenzied and sluggish".

Sequel
In January 2019, months ahead of the release of Detective Pikachu, Legendary Entertainment announced that a sequel is already in development. Oren Uziel signed on as screenwriter.