It turns out that Detective Pikachu 2–specifically the film, not the game–is still in the works, though getting it made doesn’t sound like an easy task.
2019’s Detective Pikachu was an immediate hit, amassing $433 million worldwide–making it the second highest grossing video game film of all time–and generally positive reviews, so a sequel was presumed a safe bet. It’s almost four years later, and we haven’t really heard much, with the star of the first film Justice Smith even saying Detective Pikachu 2 is unlikely. But according to Polygon, a sequel is in development, it’s just not clear how far along it is.
A representative for Legendary Entertainment told Polygon that the film is still “in active development,” but the production company wasn’t able to divulge who is actually working on it at the moment. Polygon also reported that The Pokemon Company declined to comment when asked about the film or other projects.
Touching on the topic of a new film while discussing their animated series Koala Man, writers of the first Detective Pikachu Benji Samit, and Dan Hernandez implied they weren’t involved in the sequel, though they would love to be. “It’s an ongoing conversation that is still not over to this day,” said Samit. He noted the situation is “complicated,” and involved, “a lot of big studio, corporate Pokémon rights things that we’re not privy to.”
22 Jump Street writer Oren Uziel was potentially going to pen the sequel, however representatives of Uziel’s told Polygon that while he had written an outline and screenplay, he’s no longer involved, and they were not aware of who took over.
The film isn’t the only Detective Pikachu project that has remained mysteriously quiet since its announcement, as a new game for the Nintendo Switch was also announced in 2019, but there’s been no word on it since.
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