After rumors began swirling over the weekend, it’s now been officially announced that a live-action Pokemon movie is in the works – but it won’t actually be based on the Pokemon GO mobile game that’s had the entire world glued to their phones these past few weeks.
According to Deadline, Legendary Pictures and The Pokemon Company have teamed-up to work on a live-action adaptation of the Great Detective Pikachu Nintendo 3DS video game, which was released in Japan in February, but has yet to reach U.S. shores. The game features the adventures of a talking Pikachu of unusually high intelligence, who joins a human named Tim Goodman to solve Pokemon-related crimes around their city.
It seems like an unusual move not to simply adapt the original Pokemon cartoon given the mobile game’s popularity, but perhaps there’s some method to the madness, as Pikachu is by far the most well-known of the cute little blighters.
No other details are provided, but word is the Pokemon project is being fast tracked, which means production can commence at some point next year.