Yesterday, Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson revealed via Twitter that he and Mojang, the studio that the 34-year-old Swedish developer formed to manage the Minecraft title and its expansion, are in fact working with Warner Bros. Pictures to develop a film based on the popular game franchise.

@nortch tweeted "Someone is trying leak the fact that we're working with Warner Brothers on a potential Minecraft Movie. I wanted to be the leak!"

Persson has confirmed that the tweet was not a joke. "It's for real. I think every part of that tweet was real, including me wanting to be the one to spill the news about a potential movie."

"It would be nice to tell people when it's 100 percent solid rather than to leak it before it's completely final, but our hands were a bit tied and rushed here."

The studio reportedly acquired the rights from Mojang on Thursday and the project is already garnering huge interest from writers and directors. Warner Bros. intends to make a live-action film and has already signed up Roy Lee, the producer behind The Lego Movie, to work on the project through his production company Vertigo Entertainment.

Warner Bros. could have warmed up to the idea of a Minecraft movie following the massive success of The Lego Movie, which has led to a sequel The Lego Movie 2 planned for 2017.

Since its release in 2011, Minecraft has become one of the biggest success stories in gaming history. Persson announced on Twitter that the original PC version of Minecraft has reached 100 million users, out of which 14.3 million are paid accounts. Minecraft for the Xbox 360 and Minecraft: Pocket Edition for iOS and Android have each sold more than 10 million copies, and over 1 million copies have been downloaded on the PlayStation 3 since it was released in December 2013. Mojang plans to put out Minecraft for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita.