11 Upcoming Movies Which Might Revive Dying Genres
3. Detective Pikachu - Video Game Movies
Video game movies are almost universally bad; that's not a sweeping generalisation we should be upset by. However, the trailers for Detective Pikachu make it look like we may finally be getting a movie adaptation that we can be proud of.
Pokemon is no stranger to the silver screen, but the Pokemon Company wanted to move away from just movies centred on Ash Ketchum, moving instead to the super-sleuth from the 3DS game of the same name instead.
This decision might be the best for the franchise, as critics felt that the narrative and characters were more interesting than the simplistic puzzles and gameplay. Perhaps this will be the rare case of a game being better suited to the big screen?
Trailers so far have shown that Ryan Reynolds' is perfect as the voice behind the plucky Pokemon, the prospect of big-screen Pokemon battles guarantees a visual treat and the script seems genuinely funny as all the jokes have landed pretty consistently. Slightly creepy CGI Pokemon models aside, Detective Pikachu looks set to be one of the best translations of a game franchise to the silver screen we've yet to see. Maybe there's hope for gaming movies after all!
2. The Irishman - Mob Movies
The golden era for Mafia movies was back before 2000, as very few films since have lived up to the likes of Reservoir Dogs, Scarface or the Godfather (although if you haven't seen The Departed, watch it.). Because of this relative lack of interest in the crime genre, Martin Scorcese announcing that he was working on a true-crime, American Mafia story in partnership with Netflix back in February was huge news.
The Irishman is Scorcese's adapatation of Chardles Brandt's 2004 non-fiction text I Heard You Paint Houses, a text which details the life of Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran (Robert De Niro) as a Bufalino family hitman and his involvement with the murd*er of Jimmy Hoffa, a highly prominent American labour union leader (Al Pacino).
Scorcese has plenty of pedigree in the crime genre, and he does true grit like no-one else. Plus, he’s pitting two absolute titans together who’ll undoubtedly put in top-quality performances. Given the increasingly popularity of true crime programming on Netflix, it’s safe to say that The Irishman will likely inspire a new wave of mafia films to emerge in the next couple of years.