Pokémon Detective Pikachu Sequel Finds Its Writer and Director, and More Movie News

Pokémon Detective Pikachu Sequel Finds Its Writer and Director, and More Movie News

This week’s Ketchup brings you more headlines from the world of film development news, covering such titles as Dead by Daylight, Pokemon Detective Pikachu 2, and the next Alien. This WEEK’S TOP STORY PORTLANDIA DIRECTOR TO ADAPT POKEMON DETECTIVE PIKACHU SEQUEL (Photo by Warner Bros. Pictures)
Hollywood is slowly starting to adapt more and more hit video games into movies and TV shows (like The Last of Us and the upcoming Fallout), and these adaptations are starting to fare better both at the box office and critically. It wasn’t that long ago, however, that every video game movie ever made...

This week’s Ketchup brings you more headlines from the world of film development news, covering such titles as Dead by Daylight, Pokemon Detective Pikachu 2, and the next Alien. This WEEK’S TOP STORY PORTLANDIA DIRECTOR TO ADAPT POKEMON DETECTIVE PIKACHU SEQUEL (Photo by Warner Bros. Pictures)
Hollywood is slowly starting to adapt more and more hit video games into movies and TV shows (like The Last of Us and the upcoming Fallout), and these adaptations are starting to fare better both at the box office and critically. It wasn’t that long ago, however, that every video game movie ever made had a Rotten Tomatometer score. That streak wasn’t broken until 2019, when Pokémon Detective Pikachu earned a 68% Fresh score, ushering in a new era for the genre. Legendary Entertainment actually started development on a Detective Pikachu sequel pretty quickly in 2019, but there hasn’t been much talk about it since, until this week. Legendary has hired Portlandia (Fresh at 94%) co-creator Jonathan Krisel to direct their Pokemon Detective Pikachu sequel, working from a screenplay by screenwriter Chris Galletta ( The Kings of Summer ). Krisel is also attached to direct Anne Hathaway’s long-in-development Sesame Street movie. Legendary Entertainment and The Pokemon Company have not yet announced what new characters or video game premises might be used for the sequel. Other Top Headlines 1. SLASHER VIDEO GAME DEAD BY DAYLIGHT TO STALK THE CINEMA (Photo by Behaviour Interactive)
An increasingly popular video game genre in recent years is the “co-op survival horror game,” in which a group of players attempt to survive being chased by a slasher or a type of monster who is controlled by another player. Horror franchises like Friday the 13th and Evil Dead have been adapted as these sorts of games, but the most popular game is probably the 2016 horror game Dead by Daylight . It’s also worth noting that video game publisher Behaviour Interactive has made a series of licensing deals with existing horror franchises allowing for players to take on popular characters from Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream, Stranger Things, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Now, the video game that is deeply influenced by scary movies will become one itself, as Blumhouse and Atomic Monster, the production companies that recently partnered on M3GAN (Certified Fresh at 93%), have made a deal for the film rights to Dead by Daylight. This will not be Blumhouse’s first horror video game adaptation, as the company is also now in the midst of production on the long-in-development adaptation of the scary animatronics of Five Nights at Freddy’s . 2. JOHN CENA, AWKWAFINA, AND SIMU LIU TO PLAY GRAND DEATH LOTTO (Photo by NBC, Jamie McCarthy, Steve Granitz/Getty Images)
In the 2021 Marvel Studios adventure, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (Certified Fresh at 91%), Simu Liu starred as the title superhero and Awkwafina played his best friend and sidekick. We’re still waiting on an official announcement about a Shang Chi sequel (though Simu Liu has been hinting one may come soon), but Awkwafina and Liu will be reuniting before that in an action comedy along with John Cena, the star of DC Comics’ The Suicide Squad (Certified Fresh at 90%) and Peacemaker (Fresh at 94%). Cena, Liu, and Awkwafina will co-star together in Grand Death Lotto, an action comedy “set in a near-future California where the lottery has a new provision: If someone kills the announced winner before sundown, they can legally claim their prize.” The Amazon Studios comedy will be directed by Paul Feig, who is well known for Bridesmaids (Certified Fresh at 89%) and the 2016 reboot of Ghostbusters (Certified Fresh at 73%). Awkwafina will play someone new to Los Angeles who accidentally wins the lottery, with Cena and...