Later this year, we see the very first Hollywood take on the Pokemon universe launch when Detective Pikachu, based on the unlikely Nintendo 3DS video game of the same name, releases. However, it seems like the movie makers are pretty confident in how the movie will go for them, because it sounds like they are already working on a follow up.
According to a report from The Hollywood Reporter, the sequel is being written by Orien Uziel, who is best known for the fantastic 22 Jump Street, and most recently, for the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog movie (which, unlike Detective Pikachu, does not look like it will turn out all that well at all).
Sequels being announced before a movie is even out are a big thing for franchise-minded Hollywood—the Fantastic Four reboot had a sequel announced before it was even out, and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 had a bevy of follow-ups and spin-offs planned. The financial flopping of both movies led to those plans being scarpered. All of which is to say, a sequel here isn’t given, if Detective Pikachu ends up disappointing. Thankfully, what we have seen of it looks great enough.