One of the hottest phone apps ever is now officially making its way to the big screen.
Pokémon GO, the game where you stare at your phone while chasing around virtual characters, will soon become a movie. Legendary Pictures announced this news late Wednesday and that it will fast track the flick so that production begins in early 2017, this according to THR.com. While the story is a secret, the publication reports that it will be based on Detective Pikachu.
Since Pokémon GO launched earlier this month, it has already become the biggest mobile game in U.S. history. As of last Friday, it claims more than 21 million active daily users, beating out Candy Crush at its peak. Among Android users alone, Pokémon GO is already more popular than Twitter.
As for who will write and direct the movie, that”s still to be determined. There had been rumors that Max Landis might pen the script, which he acknowledged in a recent Twitter post, but it appears the two parties have gone their separate ways.
“Rumors of me being attached to Pokemon in some respect were true and real,” Landis wrote. “So you don't have to ask: I have zero involvement in any kind of Pikachu detective movie.”