The deal came to light in a series of leaked emails between Sony Chief Amy Pascal and producer Avi Arad. UPDATE: Arad has denied that the deal has closed.

Nintendo A promotional image from the video game New Super Mario Bros. U

Sony Pictures and Nintendo appear to have closed a deal for the animated feature film rights to the Super Mario Bros. video game franchise, according to a series of emails discovered in the massive trove of hacked Sony files recently leaked to the media. "I am the proud father of mario the animated film [sic]," producer Avi Arad told Sony Studio Chief Amy Pascal in an email dated Oct. 23, 2014, with the subject line "Mario." Arad then forwarded Pascal separate images of him with Mario Bros. creator Shigeru Miyamoto and Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata, the latter of which included the message, "Happy ceo, lets get together, it's the mother load [sic]." Pascal forwarded that email to Tom Rothman, who heads up Sony Pictures subsidiary TriStar Pictures. "Avi closed Mario brothers," she said. "Animated."

Felix Ordonez / Reuters Shigeru Miyamoto Neil Hall / Reuters Avi Arad

The deal represents only the first step in a very long road to a green light for an actual feature film. Animated films especially go through a long and rigorous script development process before a movie starts production. The emails also did not indicate any filmmakers attached to the project, although Pascal does at one point suggest Genndy Tartakovsky, who directed the 2012 Sony Pictures Animation feature Hotel Transylvania and created the Cartoon Network series Dexter's Laboratory, Samurai Jack, and Star Wars: Clone Wars. "[I]ts soooo perfect for him," Pascal wrote. (A rep for Tartakovsky tells BuzzFeed News, however, that the filmmaker "is not involved.") On Oct. 24, Arad sent an email to Sony Pictures Animation President of Production Michelle Raimo Kouyate thanking her for a congratulatory basket she sent him filled with Mario Bros. merchandise. "Thank you Avi!" Kouyate responded. "Let's build a Mario empire!" Kouyate also sent a photo of the basket to Pascal, and said, "I can think of 3-4 movies right out of the gate on this. So huge!"

Walt Disney Home Video / Via gigagamers.com John Leguizamo and Bob Hoskins in 1993's Super Mario Bros.