Rita Ora has joined the cast of ‘Detective Pikachu’.
The 27-year-old singer-turned-actress – who is currently starring in ‘Fifty Shades Freed’ – is to appear alongside Ryan Reynolds, Bill Nighy and Chris Geere in the first live-action Pokemon franchise movie, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Ora also joins ‘Inception’s Ken Watanabe, ‘The Get Down’s Justice Smith and ‘Big Little Lies’ star Kathryn Newton.
However, it is currently unknown what role Ora will play in the upcoming movie.
In January, it was reported that the ‘Love Actually’ star Nighy and ‘You’re The Worst’ actor Geere had joined the cast.
‘Detective Pikachu’ is set to follow Smith’s teenage character Tim Goodman, who has to team up with the mouse-like Pikachu in order to find his father, who has been kidnapped.
In the movie based on the gaming franchise, Pikachu isn’t as agile as the normal fan favourite Pokemon, so has to rely on his intelligence to beat his enemies.
To achieve this, he gets help from Tim – who is the only boy who can understand what the he says – to solve Pokemon-related crimes.
‘Goosebumps’ director Rob Letterman is set to helm the new movie and has teamed up with Legendary Entertainment to oversee the upcoming movie, which has been written by ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’s Nicole Perlman and Alex Hirsch, who has worked on ‘Gravity Falls’.
Rather than a standalone film, it is expected that ‘Detective Pikachu’ will act as a launch pad for a new franchise.
The Pokemon Company’s long-standing movie collaborator, Toho, will handle distribution of the film franchise in Japan, as it recently worked in partnership with Legendary on the reboot for the ‘Godzilla’ franchise.
Rita Ora joins Detective Pikachu movie
