Detective Pikachu director on lack of Ash Ketchum, Ryan Reynolds “hilarious” as the character, choosing Pokemon, making them look real
Detective Pikachu will be the very first, official live-action Pokemon movie. Yet even though Ash Ketchum has largely been associated with the series thanks to the anime, the film will feature a different character instead.
When asked by IGN why Ash Ketchum isn’t in the movie, director Rob Letterman explained:
“The Pokemon 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. 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 Pokemon. So it still follows all the rules, and we get to see a lot of our favorite things.”
Letterman also spoke about Ryan Reynolds, who is playing the role of Detective Pikachu, stating that he’s “hilarious” in the role and “brought so much to the character.”
“There was something delightful about that big personality and voice that he has in this small package. There’s something really fun about that idea. It sounds like a mismatch, but it’s really organic. It’s really hilarious, they’re hilarious together.”
Another topic Letterman discussed with IGN is choosing which Pokemon are to be included in the film:
“There was a long process, before [Smith and Newton] were even involved, of working closely with The Pokemon Company, with Game Freak, with [The Pokemon Company president] Ishihara-san, [Pokemon illustrator] Sugimori-san, and the whole team. Of going through every single Pokemon, different evolutions, and really narrowing down not only the favorites – which, we tried to do as many of those as possible. But also, what worked in the story, and from the visual effects teams’ point of view, what would actually work really well for a live-action movie. Because you do have to remember, the movie is live-action, it’s not animated. We’re using some of the best visual effects companies in the world to bring the characters to life. So it was a combination of all those things.”
Letterman added that he’s personally fond of the first generation of Pokemon, but there will be a “good spread” of Pokemon across all generations.
Lastly, Letterman had this to say about the portrayal of Pokemon in the movie:
“They’re incredibly real, you should think of it as the way [Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy character] Rocket Raccoon sits in the movie as if he’s really there. It’s that technology. The same group of people that worked on that, or worked on Jungle Book. We’ve got the people on it that worked on Fantastic Beasts. They’re technically, some of the most high-end visual effects in the world. It’s completely photorealistic, like they are alive and in the movie.”
