Once one of the more head-scratching summer blockbusters of 2019, Detective Pikachu is building up a strong amount of hype in advance of its May 10th release. Early reports suggest that it’s gone down unbelievably well in test screenings, with Legendary Pictures so confident in the movie that they’ve begun developing multiple spinoffs within a Detective Pikachu universe.
One cool way that the film’s been building hype amongst fans is to gradually reveal more and more Pokémon in each trailer, with Lickitung recently driving the internet crazy. That looks set to continue, too, as a new preview has today been rated by Warner Bros. Entertainment Canada. Dubbed Trailer #2A, it’s expected to release sometime in the next 14 days, with most predicting that it’ll come attached to Captain Marvel. We also know that it’ll be two minutes and 25 seconds long, indicating it’s going to be a little more substantial than the smattering of TV spots we’ve seen over the last few weeks.
But has Detective Pikachu really got what it takes to make an impact in what’s sure to be a competitive summer blockbuster season? I doubt Avengers: Endgame will have anything to worry about, but I’m confident the film’s going to be a substantial hit. At minimum, it should end up being the most successful video game adaptation of all-time. Admittedly, its competition in this field is pretty lame (Rampage is currently the highest grossing video game adaptation ever with a global $428 million haul), but perhaps it might herald a new era of actually tolerable game adaptations.
What’s certain is that Detective Pikachu won’t be the last we see of Pokémon on the big screen. There’s even another Pokémon movie hitting theaters in Japan this very summer, the CGI remake of the first Pokémon film, dubbed Pokémon the Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution. Fingers crossed this does well, because Legendary’s plans for the future sound like heaven for any fans of the franchise.
