Big Hollywood studios are currently in a bidding war to secure the rights to the Pokémon brand for a new live-action Pokémon movie.
THR reports that a “top-secret auction” (not so secret anymore) is taking place between Legendary Entertainment, Warner Brothers, and Sony for the rights to a “big-budget live-action” Pokémon movie, a project that The Pokémon Company wants Hollywood to get its hands on.
The report speaks about some potential drama between the Chinese-owned Legendary securing the movie rights to the Japanese-owned Pokémon. “There have been long simmering political tensions between Beijing and Tokyo, which most recently peaked with Japan’s criticism of China’s territorial ambitions in the South China Sea,” writes THR. “Those pressures have also led to a cultural strain between the two countries in which China effectively banned Japanese films for three years, which was only recently broken.”
The 1999 animated Pokémon: The First Movie came from Warner Brothers and was a big success, grossing $165 million worldwide and giving us one of our favorite movie soundtracks. A live-action Pokémon movie would be a great idea for a few reasons: 1) CGI is at a place now where filmmakers could easily make Pokémon look like they exist in the real world, 2) The nostalgia factor would be through the roof, and 3) People are still obsessed with the franchise, so for a lot of people their excitement would be caused by both nostalgia and current day Pokéhype.
And just think about how many sequels and spinoffs there could be! We wouldn’t mind seeing multiple movies set in this fictional world, following different trainers and Pokémon (so long as the stories are great, of course).
For an idea of what a live-action Pokémon movie could look like, look no further than the trailer for Pokémon Go, an upcoming augmented reality game that lets you catch the creatures in the real world using your mobile device:
The news comes in the same year that Warner Brothers is releasing Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, a Wizarding World movie by J.K. Rowling that easily invites comparisons to Pokemon (Newt = Ash Ketchum, Newt’s suitcase = Pokéball, Newt’s Beasts fighting the bad guys = Ash’s Pokémon fighting other Pokémon). I’m thinking Fantastic Beasts will get people even more excited for a the movie.
I mean just look at this clip from the new Fantastic Beasts trailer. Does the way Newt throws this beast remind you of anything?
Pikachu, we hope to see you on the big screen soon.
Source: THR
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