It’s always interesting to read about a filmmaker’s inspirations as they’re crafting their latest work. Sometimes, it’s fairly obvious, like in the case of films from director Quentin Tarantino. However, there are times when you hear about the inspiration and you just have to scratch your head in confusion. That’s the exact reaction you’ll likely have when you see how the upcoming children’s movie, “Detective Pikachu,” got some specific inspo from one of the darkest crime thrillers of the ‘90s.
The film’s director, Rob Letterman, tells IGN that he was just watching David Fincher’s “Seven,” when the film gave him an idea that may or may not be too weird for a film that features a talking pocket monster detective, with electricity powers, on the search for his missing partner.
“I thought it would be really funny if we played that classic film noir detective interrogation scene, but with Mr. Mime,” Letterman said.
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Without going into spoilers, the director explains how the scene fits in the plot and why it involved Mr. Mime, to begin with.
“In their search for Tim’s missing father, [they learn his father] had an informant at the docks. So they go down to the docks, which is kind of creepy part of town, and they bump into this Mr. Mime character and it recognizes Pikachu, then they realize wait a minute, Pikachu is his father’s old partner. He recognizes him. They put two and two together and realize the father’s informant was actually a Pokemon. So they run down the Mime and do like a classic police interrogation scene ripped out of every detective movie I could think of, but flipped on its head. Because the uncooperative informant that they’re interviewing happens to be a mime.”
However, even with the famous inspiration and a fairly clever spin on a genre staple, Letterman wasn’t convinced that the scene would make it into the final cut of the film.
“Full disclosure, I thought no way in a million years would [the Mr. Mime scene] work. Honestly. It was so weird. I wanted to cut it at one point, because I was like this can’t possibly work. It’s insane,” Letterman revealed.
But nevertheless, Letterman persisted. And this brought him to the big boss of the entire Pokémon company, where the director had to explain his reasons for including a weird, admittedly creepy, interrogation scene in a kids movie about cute monsters.
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Letterman explained that he was told by many that the scene wasn’t going to work, “[They said] that’s not gonna work. That’s gonna be too weird. That’s gonna be creepy. For all those reasons, it can’t work. It came to the point where I literally had to ask the President of the whole Pokemon Company, Ishihara-san. I gave him the whole pitch, and he started laughing, and he’s like okay, give it a shot.”
And if you’re interested in watching the “Seven”-inspired scene in its full context, you can go check out “Detective Pikachu,” when it hits theaters on May 10.
Also, if you’re craving more “Detective Pikachu” goodness, here’s a new Earth Day-inspired trailer: