No Ash, no gym badges: New Pokémon film follows a card player and Mimikyu, the first film in seven years
Dubai: Pokémon is going back to the big screen. Pokémon: Wild Card was unveiled on Sunday night during the closing ceremony of the 2026 Pokémon World Championships in San Francisco, which landed Monday morning UAE time, with a worldwide release set for 2027. Tsunekazu Ishihara, president and chief executive of the Pokémon Company, told the room that a new Pokémon film was on its way for the first…
Pokémon is set to return to the big screen with Pokémon: Wild Card, the first film in seven years. The new film follows a Pokémon Trading Card Game player and Mimikyu, a Ghost and Fairy type Pokémon disguised as a Pikachu, as they chase a championship. This marks a departure from the traditional journey structure of previous Pokémon films, as neither Ash nor the cast from recent Pokémon Horizons appear in the teaser.
The film is being directed by Katsuhiko Kitada, with character design by Akemi Hayashi, and is being produced by STORY inc. and animated by CloverWorks, a studio known for work outside the usual family-animation bracket. A stop-motion series, Pokémon Tales: The Misadventures of Sirfetch d and Pichu, is also set to launch on Disney+ worldwide in 2027.
The last full theatrical release of a Pokémon film was in 2018, making the seven-year gap accurate if counting only cinema releases.
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