Ryan Reynolds is known for deadpan social media pranks, from his action-packed on-set video from his forthcoming Michael Bay movie to his long-going fake beef with Hugh Jackman. Perhaps the actor had nothing to do with this latest probable joke: On Tuesday, he took to Twitter to call out a purported leaked version of Pokémon Detective Pikachu — his latest movie, which hits theaters Thursday night — living in full on YouTube. Short version: What it actually is is almost two hours of its animated hero dancing.
Let’s back up a second: Reynolds re-tweeted an account with the handle “Inspector Pikachu,” which has one tweet and is following no one. That one tweet? A link to a YouTube video entitled “POKÉMON Detective Pikachu: Full Picture.” Reynolds called it out, alerting the Pikachu movie Twitter as well as parent company Warner Bros.
Um…. Attn @DetPikachuMovie @warnerbros https://t.co/UF7qYtKOYV
— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) May 7, 2019
If you click through, here’s what you get: The classic, official-looking Warner Bros. logo, complete with the rendition of “As Time Goes By” from Casablanca, followed by what looks like the film’s opening crane shot. A minute in, the scene abruptly cuts to the animated, Reynolds-voiced critter in a dance room, ecstatically hoofing. This goes on for another 101 minutes.
The account that posted the video has no other videos, nor is there any further information. We can’t say with certainty that Reynolds created it, or if it’s Warner Bros. itself aiming for some outside-the-box viral advertising. But let’s assume this thing won’t be quickly removed from the information superhighway.
So how about it? Do you think you can manage to watch almost an hour and 45 minutes of Pikachu dancing? See how long you can last!
(Via The Hollywood Reporter)
