Game catches Hollywood’s fancy
Los Angeles, July 17: “Pokemon Go” has caught the public’s attention — and Hollywood is no exception.
Actors, athletes and musicians are alongside the millions of fans searching for Pokemon creatures. Ellen DeGeneres, Chrissy Teigen, Demi Lovato, Steve Aoki and Soulja Boy are among the celebrities who’ve posted about the augmented reality sensation on social media.
NBA player KarlAnthony Towns had to resist the urge to pull out his smartphone at Wednesday night’s ESPY Awards to hunt for one of the cutesy pocket monsters. “I played it coming here, and I haven’t taken my phone out to play it yet, but I’ll be very upset if I missed a Pikachu around here,” said Towns on the award ceremony’s red carpet.
The addictive, locationaware smartphone game from Niantic Inc. blends the “Pokemon” universe with the real world, providing digital incentives for players to visit landmarks and capture creatures depicted on screen.
“I’m killing it,” said professional snowboarder Chloe Kim at the ESPYs. “I was in Oregon recently, and we stayed in a really small town, spent the whole day walking around catching Pokemon because it was raining, so we couldn’t do anything. It was so fun.”
While celebrating his supporting actor Emmy nomination for “Brooklyn Nine- Nine,” Andre Braugher lamented that he hasn’t been able to log into “Pokemon Go” since downloading it.
“I think it’s because billions of other people around the world are trying to do the same thing and they just don’t have the capacity,” said Braugher. “My son was able to get on and is catching Pokemon right now. I’m a little jealous.”