It’s been a couple of years since the first live-action Pokémon movie Detective Pikachu (pictured above) hit theaters, but it looks as though we could get another live-action take on the franchise: Variety says that Lucifer creator Joe Henderson is developing a show for Netflix.
Pokémon is no stranger to television: There are approximately 18 million different animated shows about the tiny little monsters and the trainers who catch them. Globally, it’s of the biggest franchises out there, with plenty of video, card, and mobile games, plus comic books, novels, and toys out there.
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In 2019, Legendary Pictures and The Pokémon Company produced the first-ever live-action project based on the franchise, which followed a former aspiring teenager trainer named Tim Goodman (Justice Smith) and a Pikachu (Ryan Reynolds) as the former tried to figure out what happened to his missing father.
Netflix is the streaming home of a number of animated Pokémon shows like Pokémon: Indigo League and Pokémon Journeys (and, as Variety points out, a growing number of anime spinoff shows based on existing properties like Altered Carbon and Pacific Rim), and Henderson has a preexisting relationship with the streaming service through his work on Lucifer, which is about to enter its final season on Netflix.
There’s no word on what the plot of the series will be about—presumably trainers catching Pokémon? Variety noted that the project is in early development, and Netflix didn’t provide comment to the publication. But if it happens, it stands to reason that it could be a big hit for the platform: a huge, recognizable brand with an enormous fanbase that would likely tune in.
