Many people have been asking why Pokemon Detective Pikachu, is shaping up to be a huge hit when many other video game movies have all flopped. This is a fair question, it seems that the long broken road studios have traveled to find a video game franchises that are widely accepted has finally happened. So let’s get to the original question. Why Pokemon Detective Pikachu succeeded were other video game movies failed.
Why Are Video Game Movies Failing?
Most of this can come down to timing and audience. Video games can be widely popular but that does not mean that stick around as long as movies do popularity wise. Games tend to ride a short hype and then die down. It is very important to catch your audience while they are excited about the game! For example, the rebooted Tomb Raider was viewed by most to be a great movie with fun action and a good lead actress. The issue was the film underperformed and earned less than $300m worldwide.
The reason for the film’s underperformance was debated especially since the game it was based on was widely popular. The main reason it seems the film did poorly was due to the long time-span between the games release and the films. The game released in 2013 and the film in 2018, that is almost 5 years, which is an eternity in video game time.
Another example is Warcraft, a very good movie, yet one that came so late after the popularity of the game that it flopped domestically, Warcraft was at its height in 2009 and while still popular it is nowhere near where it was then. Add to that the decision to have the film cover the events of the RTS games and not the MMORPG and it’s easy to see why the film that should have easily been a huge hit was instead a miss.
The Pokemon GO Firestorm
There are many other examples we could talk about, but let’s get to why Detective Pikachu was such a hit. Detective Pikachu is based on the video game of the same name released in 2016, the video game was a hit, it was the somewhat unrelated mobile game Pokemon GO that ignited a firestorm of popularity into the franchise. Clocking over a billion downloads and 150 million monthly players, Pokemon GO is a worldwide sensation, because of this many people who never were interested in the franchise before became so.
Now, this alone is not why the film is a hit, timing is the reason. Both Detective Pikachu and Pokemon GO were released just over 2 years ago, and are fresh in peoples minds, add to that the fact that Pokemon GO is still massively popular and one can start to see why Detective Pikachu is earning so much at the box office. When releasing a video game franchise it is very important to make sure it comes out while the material is fresh and while people are still interested! Had Detective Pikachu come out in 2-3 years it very likely would have met the same fate as Warcraft and Tomb Raider.