Big News: Pokémon Go Live-Action Movie is one the way!

Are you a Pokémon Go player? Fond of Pokémon Go game? Now, there's another big news for you: on July 20, Legendary Entertainment announced that it had won the rights to a Pokémon movie and is partnering with the Pokémon Company to launch the first live-action Pokémon film franchise with a "Detective Pikachu" movie. And according to Legendary's email announcement, the first Pokémon live-action movie will start to produce in 2017.

This might be the most exciting news for Pokémon Go app game players after Poke Radar was introduced, a a community-driven Pokémon finding tool that allows players to search for Pokémon and submit their findings when they run across Pokémon anywhere in the world.


According to Legendary Entertainment, the first Pokémon live-action film will be based on Detective Pikachu, a new character in the Pokémon universe, introduced through a video game in Japan. However, the movie studio hasn't revealed much about the movie details.

While Legendary Entertainment will produce the first Pokémon live-action movie, Universe Pictures will take charge in the distribution outside Japan. Toho, the Pokémon Company’s long-term movie collaborator, will handle distribution of the Detective Pikachu live-action film franchise in Japan.

The Pokémon deal was brokered by Don McGowan at The Pokémon Company International, who led the negotiations with outside counsel Dan Black of Greenberg Traurig. Marty Willhite, Daniel Feinberg and Mike Ross represented the studio.