It was rumoured some time ago that studios were bidding for the rights to do a live action Pokémon film, following the success of live action Disney remakes amongst others, and now it has been confirmed that Legendary has (fittingly enough) picked up the rights.

Legendary will be working with The Pokémon Company to make a Detective Pikachu movie, based on Great Detective Pikachu (Detective Pikachu : Birth of a New Duo in Japan) which launched in Japan earlier this year.

The film has been fast-tracked to start production in 2017 and while there are no details yet, it is probably safe to bet it will be late 2017 at the very earliest before it is released.  

Universal Pictures will handle distribution of the film outside Japan, as they have done for Legendary for years, while Toho will distribute it within Japan.  There is currently no word on if it will be a Japanese or English-language film, but it is likely to be the former.

When the trailer for Great Detective Pikachu was released and the usual helium-happy Pikachu sounded more like a gruff Chandleresque character a petition was started for Danny DeVito to voice the character, but he declined.  Who knows, maybe he'll be up for the movie!

What do you think of the news?  Are you looking forward to the Detective Pikachu movie or would you have preferred one based on one of the games or the long running anime series?