Who would have been able to guess that the very first live-action movie in the
Pokemon franchise would be an adaptation of an obscure video-game wherein Pikachu can talk and is a detective? Well that is now a reality as
Detective Pikachu is in theatres now.
Benji Samit recently did an interview with
Comicbook.com (via
Gamefragger) in which he was asked why The Pokemon Company chose to turn the
Detective Pikachu 3DS game into a movie over any of the other stories and properties that the long-running franchise has to offer.
Firstly, Samit reveals that The Pokemon Company were intent on adapting the game before he and his co-writer, Dan Hernandez, were even hired to work on the project.
"When we first got involved, it was already Detective Pikachu. I think some of those conversations happened before us. Detective Pikachu is what Legendary and the Pokemon Company were in agreement of."
Samit then stated why he thinks they chose to adapt the game, that reason apparently being its obscurity. According to the writer, the concept was unlike anything that had been on the big screen before, hence its appeal to The Pokemon Company.
"If we're going to make a live action Pokemon movie, it needs to be different. It needs a reason to exist. We don't want to just remake movies we've already seen before."
Samit continued, admitting that he and his co-writer were totally in agreement with The Pokemon Company that
Detective Pikachu was the way to go:
I think they rightfully thought this weird side-game that most people were not familiar with was actually a really cool thing to see in live action. Ryme City and Pokemon and people living together is such a cinematic thing [and] that's what they wanted to do from very early on. When we first heard about it, we were like, 'Yeah, that sounds awesome!'