For more than 20 years, the voice of Pikachu has been limited to “pika pika,” but now, with Detective Pikachu hitting cinemas, Ryan Reynolds is set to capture fans’ hearts as the voice of a very special electric rodent.
The Deadpool star as Pikachu would have seemed insane just a few years ago, but with the film expected to be an enormous hit at the box office and Legendary Pictures already lining up future movies in their live-action Pokémon universe, audiences are wondering what’s next? Well, Reynolds might have the answer.
In an interview with ComicBook.com. he spoke about the potential future of the franchise and where it could go from here, saying:
“I think you’ve got to take some deep times. I also think you’ve got to zig when everyone thinks you’re going to zag. And starts with story and making it different and fun.”
Though Pokémon is one of the biggest franchises on the planet, Detective Pikachu was still a pretty large outside bet – even as a 3DS video game it was considered an oddity. Given that Pokémon can generally only say their own name, it’s tricky to imagine top-class vocal talent deciding to lend their pipes to these creatures. But Reynolds doesn’t see this as a problem, saying:
“I’m surprised this hasn’t been developed earlier because it has such a universe and I can see it going in different directions, even ones without Pikachu. There are so many.”
Detective Pikachu looks set to be the first genuinely good video game adaptation (and lord knows there’s been a lot of terrible ones in the past), so maybe we should expect some A-listers entering the franchise in the future. After all, we’ve heard that Legendary might be planning adaptations of Pokémon Red and Blue and even a possible Mewtwo movie, so right now it looks like the series is set for big, big things and we can’t wait to see what comes next.
