Note: Contains major spoilers for Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, including its ending.
Months before the release of Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, Warner Bros had already started work on a sequel.
So surely the first movie would set up further adventures and cases to solve for Tim Goodman (Justice Smith) and Detective Pikachu (voiced by Ryan Reynolds)? Well, not quite.
We're about to head into major spoilers, so look away now if you haven't seen it.
The movie sees Tim investigate the mysterious disappearance of his father, Harry Goodman, along with the help of his father's Pokémon partner, Detective Pikachu.
Tim discovers that Harry had stumbled on a plot by Howard Clifford (Bill Nighy) to transform all humans into Pokémon or, more specifically, put them into their Pokemon partners.
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Related: Did you spot this Detective Pikachu cameo?
Howard, who has battled a life-threatening disease, wants to do this as he sees Mewtwo as his escape – but we're not quite sure why he wants to do that to everyone else.
That's what he does, though, during the action-packed finale. Using a substance called R that puts Pokémon in a frenzied state and Mewtwo's special power, Howard causes chaos in Ryme City by transferring everyone's consciousness into their Pokemon. (Yes, it's a bit weird and convoluted, but go with it.)
Tim and Detective Pikachu manage to stop Howard, and with him no longer in control of Mewtwo, the Pokémon puts everything back to normal. Mewtwo then reveals he did it to Tim's father in order to save his life.
Yes, Detective Pikachu IS Harry Goodman. (We don't want to say we told you so, but...)
"With the son's return, I can repair the father," Mewtwo tells Tim, before restoring his father to human form. The movie ends with Tim choosing to stay in Ryme City with his now-restored father and Detective Pikachu, who no longer talks to Tim beyond "Pika pika".
So it's unclear where the sequel can go, really.
Yes, it can have Tim and Harry carry on investigating crimes, but the unique element of a talking Pokemon would be gone, unless they come up with a reason for having to put Harry (temporarily) back into Pikachu.
But then their very relationship would be different given that Tim would know that it's his father talking to him.
Perhaps the sequel won't even focus on Tim. The movie sets up a huge world of potential in Ryme City and barely skims the surface, so it could be that the follow-up would be more of a spin-off than a direct sequel.
It'll probably be a while before we find out for sure, and if for some reason, Detective Pikachu underperforms at the box office, the sequel might not even happen – being in development doesn't guarantee anything.
We'd love to see more of Tim and Detective Pikachu, as well as the wider Ryme City world, but it really does feel that this particular case is closed and the sequel will be very different.
Pokémon: Detective Pikachu is out now.
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Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
