"We definitely thought about it and how it might inform the spirit of it. Danny is incredible by the way. I am a huge fan of Danny DeVito," Boyter says.
When they were thinking about who to cast as Pikachu, VFX producer Greg Baxter says he and his team took lines from assorted actors' past roles and animated an early version of Pikachu to the audio to see how it looked. Danny DeVito was one of the actors they did a test for. "It was really very funny, so I couldn't speak to all the reasons why it wasn't Danny DeVito cast," Baxter says. "I love Danny and some point maybe after the movie comes about, we can share those early tests. It's absolutely hilarious."
Boyter also offered up a strange, cryptic tease saying, "I can't give away too much, but in terms of where the story goes and how it evolves, we had to sort of look at everything, including what fans weren't seeing yet to make the decision. But that spirit of Danny DeVito, I promise you, is still inside of Pikachu." When I said that sounds like a great quote for the movie's poster, Boyter laughed and said, "By the way, Ryan would probably love that."
