The new movie is due in 2027, with a new hero and Mimikyu at the center of the adventure.
Pokémon fans have a new reason to head to theaters. Pokémon: Wild Card, an all-new animated feature, was announced during the closing ceremony of the 2026 Pokémon World Championships in San Francisco, with the movie scheduled to arrive in 2027.
A first teaser accompanied the announcement, giving audiences their first glimpse at the movie’s central duo. The Pokémon Company president and CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara described it as the franchise’s first new movie in seven years.
The timing is notable: the last animated feature, Pokémon the Movie: Secrets of the Jungle, debuted in Japan in 2020 before reaching international audiences in 2021. Wild Card therefore represents a major return to theatrical Pokémon animation.
A Pokémon Movie About the Trading Card Game
Rather than focusing primarily on the familiar Pokémon training journey, Wild Card will put the Pokémon Trading Card Game at the heart of its story. The movie follows an aspiring TCG player and his partner Mimikyu as they battle and pursue the goal of becoming a champion.
Behind the scenes, Katsuhiko Kitada is directing, Akemi Hayashi is handling character designs, Story Inc. is producing and CloverWorks is providing the animation. CloverWorks is known for projects including Bocchi the Rock! and the Spy x Family franchise.
A Franchise With a Massive Audience
Pokémon enters this new movie era with an enormous built-in audience. The franchise has sold more than 30 billion Pokémon cards, while Pokémon GO players worldwide have caught more than 88 billion Pokémon, according to figures cited by San Francisco officials.
The reach extends across generations, too. Pokémon began in 1996 and has grown from video games into television, movies, merchandise, competitive gaming and the trading card phenomenon.
That makes Wild Card an intriguing experiment: it isn’t simply another Pokémon adventure, but a movie built around one of the franchise’s biggest pillars. With a new protagonist, Mimikyu and the TCG taking center stage, Pokémon is betting that its decades-old appeal still has plenty of cards left to play.
