Nearly 25 years after a live-action version of the Mario Bros. first graced the silver screen, the studio behind Despicable Me and Minions is close to a deal to bring an animated Mario movie to theaters, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

Illumination Entertainment, a subsidiary of Comcast-owned NBC Universal, is close to a licensing deal for the film rights to the Mario games, according to "people with knowledge of the discussions" cited by the WSJ. Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto would likely serve as a producer on the film, according to the report. Talks have been ongoing for about a year, and the parties are currently finalizing just how involved Nintendo itself would be in the creative approval process for the movie, according to the paper.

The new report comes more than a year after Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima told the Japanese Asahi Shimbun newspaper that the company was in talks with a number of movie studios to bring more of its popular characters to the big screen (in addition to the long-running Pokemon anime film and TV franchise). Nintendo is currently working with Universal to bring branded attractions to the company's worldwide theme parks , so there's some basis for the relationship there.

A deal for a Mario movie would be the first licensed TV or film appearance for Mario since 1993's critically panned (and Miyamoto-maligned ) Super Mario Bros. starring Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo. But before you get your hopes up, recall that a similar 2015 WSJ report of plans for a live-action Netflix series based on The Legend of Zelda ended up being denied by Nintendo's then-president Satoru Iwata weeks later.

Even if a Mario film deal does go through, an actual movie wouldn't be guaranteed to hit theaters any time soon; the WSJ suggests it "wouldn't come out for several years." And there's no guarantee we'd see a finalized movie come to pass at all. Peter Jackson was attached to a movie based on Microsoft's Halo franchise before those plans fell apart years ago. Much-hyped plans for Gabe Newell and J.J. Abrams to collaborate on Portal and Half-Life movies fizzled out long before filming started. And films based on game franchises like Space Invaders Tetris , and many more have been stuck in development hell for years since licensing deals were inked.

All that said, we'd love to have an "official" animated version of Mario that's a little more polished and modern than the embarrassing-in-retrospect Super Mario Bros. Super Show and its follow-ups (or even the slightly better, incredibly surreal Japanese anime movie). Hey, is the team behind Hotel Mario's animated cut scenes still available?