Legendary’s ‘Detective Pikachu’ Will Be Directed By ‘Goosebumps’ Rob Letterman

For those of us still playing Pokemon Go (me) or excited about the new Sun and Moon games, or just big fans of Pokemon in general, Legendary’s “live action” Detective Pikachu movie has its director. Rob Letterman, who headed last year’s Goosebumps movie, will helm the project, which has been fast-tracked for a 2017 production start.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Legendary acquired the rights to Detective Pikachu, who is an original character from a Japanese game connected to the Pokemon universe, back in July when Pokemon Go was having its very short-lived heyday. So far, there have been 19 movies based on the Pokemon franchise, but no live-action one, until now. Letterman’s credits include Goosebumps, Monsters vs. Aliens, and Shark Tale, as well as an upcoming Dungeons and Dragons movie, so we know he’s a big fan of weird animated creatures. And, I mean, Pikachu is stupidly cute, so seeing an animated version onscreen interacting with actual actors would be kind of exciting.

As far as the story goes, the Detective Pikachu game is an adventure game in which the players solve mysteries revolving around other Pokemon in the city, by working with a talking Pikachu, who isn’t as powerful as other Pokemon, but is apparently very smart. So like, a nerd Pikachu, essentially. Universal will handle the movie’s distribution here and overseas, while Pokemon’s longtime partner Toho will handle distribution in Japan. Which sounds like the makings of a Godzilla-like franchise featuring all of our favorite Pokemon. The Detective Pikachu movie is planned to be the first of a series, so who knows. We could be catching ’em all for years to come.