Detective Pikachu might not have a post credits scene in which Samuel L Jackson appears from the shadows to tell the beloved yellow Pokemon about the Smash Bros Initiative, but that doesn’t mean an Avengers style teamup isn’t on the cards.
In a recent interview with ScreenRant, Detective Pikachu writers Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit revealed that they do actually have some ideas for a Super Smash Bros shared universe, but to real make it work, they reckon you’d have to build strong standalone movies for the characters first.
Hernandez explained:
I think that the key to doing anything like that is to make sure that the other introductory movies are sensational. It’d be a dream to write something like Legend of Zelda, but before you can get to that Smash Bros stage you have to write the best damn version of The Legend of Zelda that you possibly can. And the same with Mario, the same with Kirby, the same with Star Fox.
It makes sense as an approach, especially given that Marvel is the only studio that has managed to build a successful shared movie universe, and they did that by carefully introducing Iron Man, Cap, Thor, and Hulk in their own flicks before assembling The Avengers.
On the other hand, you have the DC universe, which threw everything at the wall straight away and failed tremendously. Slow and steady wins the billions and billions of dollars in box office revenue, as my nan used to say.
Samit added that Avengers Endgame only works the way it does because it’s built on a decade of careful planning and character development, which I completely agree with. Imagine going in to watch for three hours as dozens of characters you’ve never seen on screen before enter a melee? It’d be a hot mess.
With that said, I maintain that creating a truly decent Smash Bros movie is much easier said than done. Detective Pikachu only just managed to break the curse of crappy video game movies, so the idea of an entire franchise of Nintendo characters on the big screen that all build into a team up movie and that don’t suck is a bold one.
Then again, I didn’t think I’d ever see Spider-Man steal Captain America’s shield while Ant Man climbed inside Iron Man’s armour while Black Panther looked on, so what the hell do I know?
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Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.