The first new Pokémon movie in seven years is coming in 2027

The Pokémon Company has announced Pokémon: Wild Card, a new feature-length animated film slated for release in 2027. The project was revealed during the closing ceremony of the 2026 Pokémon World Championships in San Francisco.

The footage reveals a moody, card-game themed atmosphere starring a hooded protagonist and a Mimikyu. Instead of following a traditional trainer catching monsters in the wild, the plot centers entirely on competitive Pokémon Trading Card Game play.

It has been a very long seven years

The last feature-length release was Pokémon the Movie: Secrets of the Jungle, which hit Japanese cinemas in December 2020 before landing on Netflix in late 2021. Since then, the animated side of the property has focused on episodic television and web shorts. It has been a while.

Wild Card breaks a seven-year theatrical drought for the series. According to the official news post on Pokemon.com, the release window is officially listed as "2027 and Beyond."

CloverWorks takes the reins

Historical Pokémon films were almost entirely handled by OLM, Inc., the studio responsible for the long-running television anime. This production brings in a completely different team. CloverWorks, the studio behind Bocchi the Rock! and Spy x Family, is handling the animation. They are working alongside STORY inc., a production company known for Makoto Shinkai films like Suzume and Weathering with You.

STORY inc. Was founded by producer Genki Kawamura, and their involvement usually signals a high-budget theatrical push. Combining that with CloverWorks means we are likely getting a visual spectacle. The brief 40-second teaser already has a level of compositing and lighting that looks closer to a late-night prestige anime than a standard Saturday morning cartoon.

The staff list is equally stacked. Katsuhiko Kitada is directing, bringing experience from his work as a unit director on The First Slam Dunk. Akemi Hayashi, known for her chief animation direction on Banana Fish, is handling character design. The animation leans heavily into the shadows, giving the hooded main character a single glowing yellow eye that matches their Mimikyu partner. It's a much darker aesthetic than the usual bright, saturated look of the television series.

Pivoting to cardboard

Shifting the focus to the Trading Card Game is a massive departure for a mainline movie. The franchise has explored the card game in manga and web shorts before, but the big-budget films have traditionally stuck to monsters threatening the world while a ten-year-old fixes everything.

Mimikyu is a fitting mascot for a story about the card game. The ghost-type monster literally wears a disguise to look like Pikachu because it wants to be loved. In the context of a competitive card game where players constantly chase the most popular, powerful cards, a protagonist relying on a knock-off underdog has a lot of narrative potential.

Building a movie around competitive card play makes sense given the reveal venue. The Pokémon World Championships just wrapped up a weekend of high-level TCG competition, and the real-world circuit has never been larger. We'll have to wait until at least next year to see how CloverWorks translates tabletop card mechanics into feature-length animation.