There were no details on the title, release dates or storyline, but Universal Pictures will handle distribution worldwide.

The announcement came via a press release on the Kyoto-headquartered game maker's website on Thursday morning, local time, the day after it announced its third-quarter financial results. The news also appeared on Nintendo of America's official Twitter page.

Illumination Entertainment is the studio behind the billion-dollar Despicable Me franchise and such recent hits as Sing and Secret Life of Pets.

Mario's return to movies follows the 1993 live-action film Super Mario Bros. The pic, which starred Bob Hoskins as the cheeky Italian plumber and John Leguizamo as his brother Luigi, was critically panned and a huge-box office flop, which reportedly put Nintendo off movie adaptations of Mario or any of its other characters for many years.