Love in the Fight for Liberty

Love in the Fight for Liberty is a 2018 Japanese-American superhero intercompany crossover film featuring characters from both the Pokémon XYZ anime and the Marvel Comics superhero teams the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy. Co-produced by The Pokémon Company and OLM, Inc. in association with Marvel Studios, Chernin Entertainment and Toho and distributed by Paramount Pictures, it is the series finale to the Pokémon X & Y anime, the direct prequel to the Pokémon Sun & Moon anime, the standalone sequel to Pokémon the Movie: Volcanion and the Mechanical Marvel (2016), the sequel to every film and television special in the Infinity Saga of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) from Iron Man (2008) to Black Panther (2018), the 21st film in the Pokémon franchise, and the 19th film in the MCU. Directed by Naoko Yamada and Ari Aster and written by Aya Matsui and the writing team of Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, the film features the voices of Sarah Natochenny, Ikue Ōtani, Haven Paschall, Mike Liscio Jr., Alyson Leigh Rosenfeld, Jonathan Silver, Zoe Martin, Lisa Ortiz, Michelle Knotz, James Carter Cathcart, Robby Duncan Sharpe, Todd Haberkorn, Jo Armeniox, Michael Lockwood Crouch, Jake Paque, Andrew Paull, Vanessa Gardner, Michael Alston Baley, Catrin Lloyd Bollard, Eric Stuart, Anaris Quiñones, Veronica Taylor, Jessica DiCicco, H. D. Quinn, Abe Goldfarb, and Samara Naemyi reprising their respective roles with Ariana Grande, Adam Driver and Toni Collette voicing new characters, with the MCU cast being an ensemble one consisting of Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Don Cheadle, Tom Holland, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Danai Gurira, Letitia Wright, Dave Bautista, Zoe Saldana, Josh Brolin, and Chris Pratt. In the film, Ash Ketchum and all his friends both from Kalos and other regions, along with the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy, attempt to prevent a resurgent Team Flare and their leader Lysandre, who have teamed up with Thanos in collecting the six all-powerful Infinity Stones, from killing half of all life in the Pokémon-MCU joint multiverse.

The project was announced in October 2016 as Pokémon XYZ: Oblivion. Yamada and Aster came on board to direct two months later, and a two and a half weeks after that Matsui, Markus and McFeely signed on to write the script, which draws inspiration from Pokémon XYZ from the episode A Watershed Moment to the end of the episode Forming a More Perfect Union, the Kalos trilogy of the Ancienverse fanfiction franchise, Jim Starlin's 1991 comic book The Infinity Gauntlet and Jonathon Hickman's 2003 comic book Infinity. At the beginning of January 2017, Pokémon and Marvel changed the title to Love in the Fight for Liberty. Filming for the live-action scenes, the ones set in the MCU, began the next day at Pinewood Atlanta Studios in Fayette County, Georgia, while the animation for the Pokémon anime characters, scenes and locations was provided by Production IG and TMS Entertainment and the visual effects for MCU characters such as the Hulk and Rocket Raccoon being provided by over 100 companies, with a huge cast consisting mostly of voice actors reprising their roles from the Pokémon anime and actors reprising their roles from previous MCU films respectively, including Ōtani as Ash's Pikachu and Brolin as Thanos. The production lasted until September 2017; additional filming took place in Scotland, the Downtown Atlanta area, and New York City. With an estimated production budget of $925-985 million, the film is the most expensive film ever made that's unadjusted for inflation. It is also one of the longest non-experimental films ever, with a runtime of 330 minutes long.

Love in the Fight for Liberty premiered at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, on April 23, 2018, and was released theatrically in the United States on April 27, 2018 and in Japan on May 1, 2018, as part of Phase Three of the MCU. Critics praised Maeymi and Brolin's performances, intertwining of live action and animation, visual effects, bittersweet tone, emotional weight and action sequences. It was the fourth film and the first superhero film to gross over $2 billion worldwide, breaking numerous box-office records, and becoming the highest-grossing film of 2018 and the fourth-highest-grossing at the time of its release both worldwide and in the United States and Canada. It received a nomination for Best Visual Effects at the 91st Academy Awards, among numerous other accolades.