Jason Momoa and Jack Black star A Minecraft movie.
Minecraft is one of the most successful and influential games of the early 21st century, winning many awards and selling over 300 million copies (so far) since its release in 2011. So, it was only a matter of time before Hollywood gave us a movie based on the 3D sandbox game, simply titled A Minecraft movieSure, one might have reservations about another movie based on a video game, but the silver lining is that we do have Jason Momoa and Jack Black co-starring. And the first trailer is full of eye-catching, candy-colored cube images and sly references to the game that should please fans.
Within a year of MinecraftFollowing the game's initial release, Mojang Studios was receiving offers from Hollywood producers to make a TV series based on the game, but the company wanted to wait for “the right idea” to come along. In 2014, there was an attempt to crowdfund a fan film, but the game's creator Markus “Notch” Persson declined to license that initiative, as he was already in negotiations with Warner Bros. to develop a film based on the game. Thus began a long and complicated process of hiring directors and screenwriters who all dropped out of the project for various reasons.
When the dust finally settled, Jared Hess (who worked with Black on Nacho Libre) ended up directing. The COVID pandemic and the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike delayed things further, but filming finally wrapped earlier this year in Auckland, New Zealand, just in time for a spring 2025 theatrical release. According to the official synopsis:
Welcome to the world of Minecraft, where creativity doesn’t just help you create – it’s essential to survival! Four misfits – Garrett “The Garbage Man” Garrison (Jason Momoa), Henry (Sebastian Eugene Hansen), Natalie (Emma Myers) and Dawn (Danielle Brooks) – find themselves struggling with everyday problems when they’re suddenly swept through a mysterious portal into the Overworld: a strange, cubic wonderland that thrives on imagination. To get back home, they’ll have to master this world (and also protect it from evil things like Piglins and Zombies) as they embark on a magical quest with an unexpected, skilled craftsman, Steve (Jack Black). Together, their adventure will challenge all five to be bold and reconnect with the qualities that make each of them uniquely creative…the same skills they need to thrive in the real world.
Players will recognize Steve as one of the default characters in MinecraftThe trailer is set to the Beatles' “Magical Mystery Tour” and opens with our misfits encountering a fantastical Tolkien-esque landscape, only with a lot more cubic shapes, like a pink sheep with a cubic head. We see the aforementioned Piglins and other creatures before Black shows up and dramatically announces to great fanfare, “I… am Steve.” Honestly, we're probably watching it just for Black's performance.
A Minecraft movie It will hit theaters in April 2025.
Listing image from YouTube/Warner Bros.