Ryan Reynolds to play Detective Pikachu

Los Angeles: Actor Ryan Reynolds has been roped in to play the title role in upcoming live action Pokemon movie "Detective Pikachu", based on a similarly titled adventure video game.

Reynolds will star alongside Justice Smith and Kathryn Newton in the movie, reports hollywoodreporter.com.

Pokemon is one of the biggest media franchises in Japan. It launched with a video game and has since been spanned over card games, TV series and animated films. The concept of "Pokemon" sees players acting as trainers who collect cute but powerful monsters called Pokemon in order to compete in battle tournaments. 

Pikachu is a species of Pokemon whereas Detective Pikachu is a rare, intelligent and talking Pikachu that is adept at solving mystery and finding things.