Detective Pikachu, the Pokémon game in which a kindly and intelligent character teams up with a boy called Tim Goodman to solve mysteries, is to be the first instalment in a forthcoming Pokémon movie franchise, with production starting in 2017.

Only released earlier this year, the game has proved one of the most popular in Nintendo’s Pokémon slate. Soon after its release, 40,000 signatures were gathered on a petition lobbying for Danny DeVito to voice the English language version, but the actor reportedly declined to audition.

When augmented-reality game Pokémon Go was released a fortnight ago, it proved so successful that Nintendo witnessed a 25% rise in the value of its stock.

Last week, when the Legendary deal was first mooted, it was also rumoured that Victor Frankenstein writer Max Landis would be on screenplay duties. Legendary Pictures has been behind blockbusters such as Inception, Jurassic World and Interstellar, and earlier this year it was bought by the Chinese conglomerate Wanda Group for $3.5bn.

The Pokémon franchise has had mixed success at the box office. Pokémon: The First Movie took $163m worldwide in 1999, but the most recent film, Pokémon Heroes, brought in just $28m four years later.