Pokemon (live-action movie)

Disclaimer: This wiki page is a FAKE'' this is Idea-Wiki, not Wikipedia, Okay. I may be talking about real actors and movie studios, but, C'mon! Who would like to make a Pokémon live-action film now? It was very popular in the late 90s and early 2000, but now, In America and Europe, the fad's over, and even with Pokémon Platinum, there's no actual excuse to make it, Hope you understand and Enjoy Reading!''

POKEMON (working title) is an upcoming live Action adaptation of the multi-billion dollar Pokemon franchise by Nintendo scheduled for release summer 2011. It will be directed by Bryan Singer and produced by Satoshi Taijri himself. The film will star Emile Hirsch as Ash Ketchum, Kristen Stewart as Misty Rivers, Channing Tatum as Brock Solyd, Garrett Hedlund as Gary Oak, Hugh Laurie as Professor Samuel Oak and Amy Irving as Ms. Ketchum, Ash’s mother.

A Pokemon Live-Action film has been planned since the franchise’s early years, however fearful of fan reaction The project was put on hold. It wasn’t until 2009 people discovered that the project being on the works Due to the trailer premiering in April 2010, many people thought it as an April Fools’ Day Joke.

Plot
While the base plot of Ash attempting to become a Pokemon master will be kept, things have been improved for audiences, such as Ash being 20 instead of 10, Team Rocket being more of a facisist political party than a criminal organization, and having a more Transformers-style seriousness. The movie will take place on the year 2096 (exactly 100 years after the original Japanese release of Pokemon Red & Green/Blue on the Game Boy) where humanity has not changed too much in technological aspects (instead the world is more ecologically friendly and characters wear modern clothes), but creatures have evolved to the degree they have developed abilities and natures of their own.

Development
After the success of Pokemon Red and Blue, Universal Pictures attempted to seek the rights for Pokemon animation, including the TV show and feature films, if done, that would have the Pokemon cartoon on UPN Kids. While losing the animation rights to WB, Universal still managed to deal the live-action rights. During 2000 to 2007 Universal held the project dormant as Pokemon wasn't as relevant as back in the late '90's.

Noting the successes of Transformers and Cloverfield by UIP partner Paramount, Universal decided to put hands-on work for Pokémon. The only prospective directors that responded to Universal's letter of request were Üwe Böll and Jason Friedberg and his buddy Aaron Seltzer, the three who have directed terrible films that have been panned by audiences and have been (in Böll's case) box-office flops. In response, Universal sent a letter telling them that:

"While we understand your enthusiasm, It seems that the quality of your films is not up to our standards, because we don't want a film filled with nudity and sex jokes, pointless car chases and pop culture references and parodies, No, Pokémon is for a younger audience you are accustomed and we push for a quality film, not for a Meet the Spartans Jr."

Universal executives referred it as "The Wizard for the MySpace generation" (The Wizard was a 1989 film starring Fred Savage about a depressed boy who was a Nintendo game champion). Universal commented that the decline of the popularity of their films with a younger audience was a main pushing factor for the creation of a live-action Pokémon film.

After contacting Pokémon creator Satoshi Taijiri for support via a video conference and to the surprise of Universal he responded enthusiastically and a month later, he sent a rough draft of the script via email. Universal execs allowed him to choose the director, In his mind, he originally chose Michael Bay, but later he read on the Internet that he was working on a sequel to Transformers, so his second choice was Bryan Singer, director of the first two X-Men films and Superman Returns. Singer signed on the project after finishing Valkyrie and accepted with a smile, according to Universal, due to the slow production of a Superman Returns sequel and because he wanted to do a family film. Full work began on Fall of 2008.

Casting
While the male leads (Tatum, Hedlund and Hirsch) were enthusiastic about the role, as they all played Pokemon in their teens, Misty’s role was a little more difficult: first Emily Blunt and Anne Hathaway were considered for Misty, but Blunt was too old and Hathaway wanted more mature roles after the Princess Diaries films. Hayley Williams from Paramore was expected to be cast as Misty until May 2009; when Kristen Stewart obtained the role.

As for Team Rocket, Blunt was asked to play Jessie instead of Misty and Seth Green was cast as James in mid-July 2009. Senior roles required more time, Amy Irving did it for her grandchildren, but in his case, Hugh Laurie thought it would be “extremely fun” and signed himself without prompt.

Filming and Design
Filming is taking place in the United Kingdom, due to its green forests that closely go on the lines of the anime. “Almost every episode began with Ash and friends walking down a forest road”, Singer told Official Nintendo Magazine, who billed the United Kingdom as “United Kanto”.

For the costumes, the actors similar color schemes to that of the cartoons. Ash does wear a red cap, a jacket and jeans, yet his hairstyle and design of the jacket is different from the original. Hirsch instead used a comfortable short and spiky style instead of the more impossible style used in the anime. Ash wears a letterman jacket with the Pokeball insignia alongside a “Viridian High Venusaurs” patch in the back. Tatum’s hair was not a problem, as he only needed to allow his hair to grow, his costume as Brock consisted of a brown motorcycle jacket with a green shirt under, and orange fingerless gloves, alongside braided, Native-American style light brown pants.

Stewart’s hairstyle was the most radical: She actually dyed her hair orange and cut it on Misty’s style. As part of her costume she wore a Yellow sleeveless shirt, red sweater and knee-cut jeans.

While the film features the original characters and it is set on Kanto, Pokemon from later generations, such as Gold/Silver, Ruby/Sapphire and even Diamond/Pearl will make appearances. The starter pokemon will be actually 4: Pikachu (representing the original generation) Treecko (representing the GBA generation) Cyndaquil (representing the Johto generation) and Piplup (representing the Diamond/Pearl generation) Arceus (a Pokemon from the D&P generation) plays an important role as well.

Original Pokemon designer Ken Sugimori made concept drawings for the creatures that blurred the line between realistic and fantastic. The National Conference for Welfare of Animal Actors, proccupied by Pokemon's creature fighting theme, sent letters to the producers telling them to cancel. However, they were relieved and surprised that only a small live hamster was used to capture the motions and behavior for Pikachu. As the hamster was a pet of a filmmaker's children he was treated humanely and was even introduced to the cast.

Soundtrack
Game Informer reported that Vince DiCola (The Transformers: The Movie) would provide the soundtrack for Pokémon, in fact, as another reference to the G1 Transformers movie in 1986, Stan Bush’s rock anthem “The Touch (2007 version)” while not used in the 2007 Transformers movie, will be instead in Pokemon, as it was heard in the teaser trailer.

Norwegian glam punk band Turbonegro will record a special metal version of the Pokémon theme.

Controversy
American Association for the Proper Treatment of Critters, a renowned environmentalist group and a long-time enemy of Pokemon released a chart that falsely scheduled that "animal cruelty by children ages 9-11 will increase in a significant degree due to the behaviors seen in the upcoming Pokémon film" They are currently on an anti-Speed Racer campaign, that exclusively targets protagonists Emile Hirsch (for acting as the lead role in both Speed Racer and Pokémon) and Christina Ricci (due that she topped AAFTPTC's "Most Fur-Wearing Chick" in 2007 though she no longer wears fur and she acted as Trixie in Speed Racer) However, Hirsch himself released a statement that, even humans are animals, so they'd better protest against Ultimate Car Robbery 4 for the Z-Box 240 and GameCentral 4.