gotta catch 'em all

Live-Action Pokémon Movie Catches Guardians of the Galaxy and Gravity Falls Writers

Pokemon 3 Movie Stills
Photo: Getty Images/Getty Images

Banking on everyone’s Pokémon Go obsession lasting long enough for a movie to go through production, China’s Legendary Films announced they bought the movie rights to make a live-action Pokémon movie based on a new video-game character, “Detective Pikachu” (as you probably guessed, he does indeed wear a Sherlock Holmes hat and grimace). But who, the world wondered, could possibly handle the complex emotions of a lovable, weirdly cute, nonhuman major character with a one-word vocabulary of its own name? Enter Nicole Perlman, a comic-book writer, who, among other titles, penned Guardians of the Galaxy stories and will surely give Pikachu — excuse me — Det. Pikachu the same heart as Groot, and will somehow find a way to translate that character’s brute strength to Pikachu’s lightning bolts or crime-solving prowess. Her co-writer, Gravity Falls creator Alex Hirsch, is presumably there to help deliver kid-friendly mysteries for the tiny sleuth to tackle that people actually old enough to buy their own damn smart phones will also find entertaining. The first case we’d like Det. Pikachu to solve is how to stop Abra from disappearing after you capture him. It’s so annoying.

Guardians of the Galaxy Writer Joins Pokémon Pic