100-Minute ‘Leaked’ Video of ‘Detective Pikachu’ Dancing Goes Viral
Detective Pikachu has leaked on YouTube! Oh my goodness! Psyduck is going to be so mad! (Psyduck runs Warner Bros. Pictures, right? That’s what I was told by a very reliable person in a Reddit thread yesterday.)
While a video titled “POKÉMON Detective Pikachu: Full Picture” did appear yesterday on YouTube, it is not in fact the new live-action Pikachu movie in total. Instead, it is a very canny — frankly, ingenious — marketing stunt. After some very convincing opening credits (and a watermark indicating that this video comes from the private collection of one “R. Reynolds,” surely no relation to the film’s star), you are treated to to the sight of Detective Pikachu dancing in what looks like an old timey aerobics studio.
For literally 100 straight minutes.
Whoever thought of this idea, which you can watch above, deserves a raise. It grabs anyone actually looking for illegal copies of Detective Pikachu, and it allows them the chance to rickroll their friends on social media, which shares the video further, and invites more people to repeat the entire process. And obviously it worked; the video already has about 5 million views on YouTube in a day.
Detective Pikachu opens in theaters this Friday. Having seen it, I can say with total certainty this video of Pikachu dancing is the superior entertainment.
Gallery — The Best Twist Endings in Film History: