E-Mails Reveal Sony Chasing Rights to Super Smash Bros. Movie

E-mails from last year’s Sony Pictures hack have revealed that the studio has been actively pursuing the film rights to Nintendo’s mass beat ‘em up franchise, Super Smash Bros.. The discovery of these e-mails follows the entire contents of the hack being published on Wikileaks earlier this week.

Former Sony Pictures co-chairman Amy Pascal – who lost her job in the wake of the leak, after she was seen to criticise movies with black casts – received e-mails in February 2014 that named Super Smash Bros. as a potentially lucrative franchise, and linked producer Avi Arad – responsible for the vast majority of Sony’s Marvel Comics adaptations  – to a potential rights grab, with Arad “planning to meet with his Nintendo guy (who he has been courting for a couple of years) when he goes to Japan.”

A later February e-mail between Arad and Pascal referred to the “five year chase” of trying to acquire the rights to every character featured in the game series, from Mario to Zelda to Donkey Kong. Arad referred to his Japan trip again, saying, I am going to try and bring back a little plumber […] I guess we can all use our pipes cleaned.” He then pitched the idea of a Pokemon movie to Pascal, saying that it was “the other property I am working on with Nintendo.”

Despite output of variable quality, Hollywood seems determined to mine video games as established properties for adaptation, with a Five Nights at Freddy’s movie in the works and Netflix producing a Legend of Zelda TV show. Which untapped video game gem would you like to see make the transition to the silver screen?

Thank you Ars Technica for providing us with this information.

Image courtesy of Nintendo.