The first live-action Pokemon movie, Detective Pikachu, is a real thing and we’re slowly getting the chance to learn more about what it will bring to the table. Now, it won’t be your typical Pokemon movie, that we already know, but what else?
Here’s the shocker, folks. If you’ve been expecting Ash Ketchum to appear in Detective Pikachu as the lead character or any character for that matter, then you should feel disappointed because that’s not going to happen.
You see, director Rob Letterman wants to create a movie that differs a lot from the anime. Not only that, but there have been several animated movies with Ash Ketchum as the main character, and he’s starred in over 1,000 anime episodes.
As it stands then, Ash has been hogging the spotlight for decades, therefore, a change is required, and Rob Letterman is willing to forego the titular character to see these changes through.
“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 on board, I was pitched this character of Detective Pikachu, and I fell in love with the story behind it,” according to Letterman.
“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.”
From our point of view, doing away with Ash for this movie shouldn’t be an issue. Let’s face it, the Pokemon creatures are more popular than Ash, so in a sense, he’s not that important in the grand scheme of things.