Pokemon Wild Card is headed for a worldwide 2027 release after its unveiling at the 2026 Pokémon World Championships in San Francisco. The teaser puts a trading card game player and Mimikyu on screen. Katsuhiko Kitada is directing the film, giving Pokémon its next big-screen entry after a long gap.
2026 Pokémon World Championships
The announcement arrived during the closing ceremony in San Francisco, which is the right venue for a franchise that keeps folding its game and screen identities into one another. The teaser was brief, but it did enough work: it framed the movie around a trading card game player dressed in a yellow hoodie like Mimikyu, not around a broad ensemble or a familiar return to existing movie leads.
Katsuhiko Kitada and CloverWorks
Kitada has worked on The First Slam Dunk, Attack on Titan, Naruto: Shippuden, Spy X Family, Bocchi the Rock, Lazarus, Banana Fish, and Winds and Waves. Akemi Hayashi is handling character design, and CloverWorks is producing the film. Those names point to a movie being built with experienced anime craft rather than a side project built around a tournament-stage reveal.
Secrets of the Jungle and 2018
Pokemon Wild Card is the first Pokémon movie made since 2020’s Secrets of the Jungle, which was released theatrically in Japan and worldwide on Netflix in 2021. The franchise’s last film to hit theaters worldwide was 2018’s The Power of Us, with Fathom Events handling a limited release outside Japan. That gap matters because this announcement is not just a teaser drop; it is Pokémon’s return to a global movie rollout after years in which the brand’s screen presence shifted away from theaters.
Wild Card in 2027
The 2027 release window still leaves the exact date open, and the teaser keeps the premise tight around the trading card game player and Mimikyu. For now, the practical read is simple: Pokémon is putting a new movie back into circulation, and the franchise will use the year ahead to turn a tournament reveal into a fuller theatrical campaign.
