While the Detective Pikachu movie is still a few months away for its official premiere, rumors are brewing in the Pokémon fandom community after a website claimed that Legendary Entertainment is also working on a Pokémon Red and Blue movie.
The movie is said to be based on the popular Pokémon Gameboy Color games Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue. The source of the rumor was the website We Got This Covered, whose “trusted sources” claimed that this upcoming movie project will be set in the same universe as Detective Pikachu but will focus on the introduction of the franchise, much like how players were introduced to Pokémon lore via the Gameboy games.
Although nothing’s officially confirmed as of this time, it does make you think that Legendary could be aiming to pull off a “Pokémon Cinematic Universe.” The thing here is that adapting a movie from the first games wouldn’t make sense, since there are no interesting plots that you can put onto the big screen except for encounters with Team Rocket. It would be interesting though if they feature the first legendary Pokémon like Mew and Mewtwo.
In Japan, it was announced previously that the next Pokémon animated movie to be released in theaters is Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution. It is said to be a CGI remake of Pokémon the First Movie which premiered back in July 1998 and a sequel to the 2018 film Pokémon the Movie: The Power of Us. The upcoming film is slated to premiere in July this year.
The upcoming film Detective Pikachu movie is slated to be released in cinemas on May 10 this year. The movie will be distributed in Japan by TOHO while Warner Bros will distribute the film in North America. It is based on the Nintendo 3DS game of the same name that was released in 2016 in Japan and in the US, Europe, and Australia in March 2018.
Regardless if the rumors will be debunked sooner or later, it all boils down to the reality that Pokémon is one of the most popular franchises in the world and might soon dominate the cinema entertainment industry in the future.
Source: Comicbook, We Got This Covered, Polygon