First Set Photos From Live Action Detective Pikachu Movie Appear Online

A live action Pokémon movie has certainly been a long time coming, but now it’s one step closer to reality, as filming is now underway on the Detective Pikachu movie.

A bunch of photos from the film’s London set have appeared online thanks to the Twitter users Mr.G, HowBud, and PokéJungle, all of which have been gathered below.

From these images, we can ascertain some very interesting details about the film. Firstly, the police headquarters sign confirms that at least a portion of it will take place in Ryme City, the setting of the original Detective Pikachu game. The sign also contained text reading ‘Human Pokémon Partnership”, so we’ll probably be seeing several Pokémon on the police force, but let’s just hope that they don’t go the route of Netflix’s Bright by trying to turn that into a very poorly handled allegory on racial injustice.

We already knew that some of the Pokémon in the film would be portrayed using motion capture, so you probably won’t be surprised to see actors in purple suits walking around the set. The photos even show people holding what appear to be cardboard silhouettes of Pokémon creatures, presumably as a point of reference for the VFX department during the post-production process.

Detective Pikachu is being directed by Rob Letterman, who started out his career in animation with films like Shark Tale and Monsters vs. Aliens, before he moved to live action with Gulliver’s Travels and Goosebumps. Ryan Reynolds will appear as the titular electric rodent investigator, with the human cast including Ken Watanabe, Justice Smith, and Kathryn Newton. Universal Pictures will release the film in the US on May 10, 2019, whilst Toho will handle distribution in Japan.

If you don’t think you can wait that long, rest assured that Nintendo will finally release the Detective Pikachu game in the west on March 23, 2018.