Legendary nabs 'Pokemon' movie rights

Legendary Pictures has secured the rights to make "Pokemon" movie after the massive success of widely popular game 'Pokemon GO'.

According to Deadline, the studio and the Pokemon Company have closed their deals to launch the first live-action movie based on the Japanese pocket monster game.



The live-action film will center on a character in the Pokemon universe, Detective Pikachu, which was introduced in a game that came out in Japan earlier this year.

Though details of the story are still kept under wraps, the screenplay will reportedly be penned by Max Landis, who also wrote the script of 'Power Rangers'.

Legendary will begin production of the film next year with

Universal Pictures

distributing outside Japan. Toho will handle the distribution in Japan as the studio had previously done the same in distributing the reboot of '

Godzilla

' movie franchise.

'Pokemon GO' puts Pokemon in the real world by utilizing GPS location information and makes players chase down the virtual pocket monsters in their own vehicles.

'Pokemon' itself is a franchise of video games, trading cards, TV shows, comic books and movies. The franchise focuses on the unique creatures that are collected by Pokemon Trainers, who then train them to battle for sport.

'Pokemon' was created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1995. The first video game, launched for Game Boy, was released in 1996. Nineteen animated films based on the property have been made with the first movie, 'Pokemon: The First Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back', released in 1998.