U.S.-produced Netflix Pokémon live-action series reportedly on the way

Producer might be going from a show about the devil to a show about Pocket Monsters.

Netflix has been announcing live-action versions of popular anime series at a frantic pace over the last two years, with plans to make their own non-animated versions of some of Japan’s most beloved franchises. Now it seems like there’s another property on the streaming giant’s quest to adapt ‘em all, and it’s reportedly none other than Pokémon.

U.S. entertainment website Variety says that a live-action Pokémon series is in “early development” at Netflix with Joe Henderson as writer and executive producer. Henderson is currently serving as co-showrunner for the series Lucifer, itself an adaptation of a DC comics series that ran for three seasons on fox before Netflix gave it a new lease on life after a one-year hiatus.

Considering the divisive reaction to Netflix’s live-action Death Note back in 2017, it might seem like a gutsy choice to take on the task of adapting Pokémon, a series with an even more passionate and vocal existing fanbase. However, Netflix stands to benefit from how the Pokémon community is actually made up of a number of subsets. Not all fans of the Pokémongames watch every episode of the anime, and vice-versa, so as long as Netflix stays true to the broad-stroke worldview and lore that stretches across the various branches of the Pokémon multimedia franchise, the live-action series might be able to earn enough goodwill to earn fans’ acceptance of original characters and story, as was the case with Legendary Pictures’ Pokémon Detective Pikachu in 2019.

However, while Variety cites “sources” in its report, Netflix itself has not yet made any official announcement about a live-action Pokémon series. If and when they do, we probably won’t be seeing it until sometime next year at the earliest, assuming that Henderson currently has his hands full with the sixth and final season of Lucifer, which releases in September. Meanwhile, there are still those live-action Netflix versions of Cowboy Bebop, Gundam, Yu Yu Hakusho, and One Piece in the works

Source: Variety via Deadline via Jin
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