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Paper Towns and Netflix series The Get Down were only the beginning for breakout actor Justice Smith. The 22-year-old performer will be the protagonist in the first-ever live-action Pokémon movie, titled Detective Pikachu.
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According to Variety, Universal Pictures is handling distribution and the Pokémon Company’s movie collaborator Toho will handle distribution of the movie franchise in Japan. While first introduced in Japan in 1996, the franchise showed great success when reintroduced to the international market with Pokémon Go last year. The film is supposed to begin production in January 2018.
The exact plot of the film is not known yet, but it’s supposed to be based on the popular video game The Great Detective Pikachu, which follows Tim Goodman who heads to Rhyme City in search of his missing father. He comes across Detective Pikachu, who he is somehow able to understand in plain English. While Goodman can’t understand other Pokémon, or even other Pikachus, Detective Pikachu has no problem translating. This dynamic duo has an upper hand on being able to fight crime and solve cases.
While Smith landed his first major breakout role in Baz Luhrmann’s hip hop drama series on Netflix, the series was not picked up for a second season. Since his role as Ezekiel Figuero, he’s worked on films Every Day and Jurrassic World: Fallen Kingdom. He also appeared in Yen, an Off-Broadway play earlier in 2017.
