Legendary has reportedly been trying to get the rights to a live-action Pokemon movie for months now, but news from Deadline says they’re making aggressive moves to close the deal in light of the absurd popularity of Pokemon Go, which is now installed on more Android phones than Tinder and might be able to boast more daily active users than Twitter. It’s so popular it’s already inspired plenty of jokes, privacy fears, Congressional concerns, news cast interruptions, angry parking lot rants, cheats galore, and even a browser extension to block mentions of the game (which is how anything in the cultural zeitgeist knows it’s truly arrived).
Legendary already owns the movie rights to another video game, Warcraft, which didn’t do well in the U.S., but still broke records in China and became the most financially successful video game adaptation. Deadline reports Legendary’s deal for Pokemon might also break a record of sorts: “This will likely test the bounds of the biggest video-game movie rights deal, which is around $5 million against 5% of first-dollar gross.”
They’ll likely have to offer a generous stack of cash to land the rights. Both the Pokemon Company and Nintendo are protective of their properties, the former still stinging from Super Mario Bros. And it’s not like Nintendo is hurting for money at the moment. Their stock has jumped about 64% since Pokemon Go launched in the U.S. only six days ago.
Nintendo's mobile strategy:
2008: what's an iPhone
2010: what's an Android
2012: nope
2014: still no
2016: change how society functions— Aaron Levie (@levie) July 11, 2016
(Via Deadline)