There is hardly an actor who has more charisma than Leonardo DiCaprio (“Killers Of The Flower Moon”). The name of the Oscar winner can now be seen as a kind of seal of quality. When DiCaprio stars in a movie, you just know it’s going to be damn good. But how does “Pokémon” fit into this?
At the height of the ‘Pokemon’ wave in the late 1990s, ‘Pokemon – The Movie’ was developed to bring the brand to the big screens. Leonardo DiCaprio, who previously starred in James Cameron’s ‘Titanic’ and became the biggest star of the moment, would take over the English voice of Ash Ketchum, the main character of the franchise. Alex Pappademas explained the circumstances of this in his podcast “The Big Hit Show” (via ).
Leonardo DiCaprio as Ash Ketchum?!
Norman Grossfeld, the producer of the English version of ‘Pokémon’, reportedly said of Leonardo DiCaprio’s involvement: ‘We really want him! We can make this work. We’re going to hire Leonardo DiCaprio to voice Ash. It will attract a lot of attention, it will bring us a lot of money and we will get even more celebrities. It’s going to be really big!”.
Grossfeld’s idea was to increase interest in “Pokemon” even further. Pappademas also explained in his podcast that ultimately nothing came of it. It is said that they ultimately decided not to replace Ash’s original voice:
“Whether DiCaprio can actually be persuaded to voice Ash in this film is unclear. But either way it wouldn’t have mattered because Norman would have said no to meeting DiCaprio. According to him, it would be strange to the many children who have become accustomed to Ash’s voice if someone else suddenly pronounced it.”
In retrospect, this was definitely the better decision. “Pokémon” has become a mega-franchise even without DiCaprio’s help. DiCaprio probably would have done more to distract from the film’s real impact, which wouldn’t have been particularly good for the overall success of “Pokémon.”