The success of video game adaptations like The Last of Us and The Super Mario Bros. Movie seem to be prompting a new era in movie making: The era of the gamer.
It’s not necessarily a good thing, particularly in the minds of gamers themselves. We love the idea of seeing our favorite games reimagined via a new format, of course, and we were blown away by the gorgeous triumph of shows like The Last of Us and Arcane, but those are a bare few successes in a sea of failures. It’s not like studios haven’t eyed the potential of games before — but you don’t see many viewers returning to those god-awful Silent Hill films or *gag* Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time for a rewatch.
That’s not to say that the new era of video game adaptations, which will include a Minecraft movie on top of the planned God of War, Fallout, and Gears of War flicks, will be bad, necessarily, but it does cast doubt. Even more recent attempts at video game adaptations — looking at you Halo — have fallen entirely flat, and it’s hard to have faith in studios that have already let us down.
The Minecraft movie is particularly questionable. Don’t get me wrong — Minecraft is among the most popular games out there, particularly among young players. It’s a tantalizing property to be sure, but it’s also not your most story-driven game. A huge part of what made The Last of Us so successful was its heavy reliance on the very same story that made the game a smash hit. Sure, some changes were made, but the pure, brutal soul of the story remained.
Minecraft boasts no such storyline. It’s a much more simplistic game, which adds credence to concerns over just what the film adaptation will contain. It’s not a guaranteed bust, of course, but gamers will be headed into the 2025 release with low expectations.
The Minecraft movie release date
Those expectations may be massively exceeded when Minecraft finally arrives in theaters, but gamers have a good while to stew before that date rolls around. The flick is currently set for release in the early months of 2025, leaving gamers with months left to hype themselves up for the film. Minecraft is currently slated to arrive in theaters on April 4, 2025.
When was the Minecraft movie first announced?
The idea for a Minecraft adaptation has been floating around Hollywood since 2012, but it didn’t coalesce into a real project until 2014. While the film we’re set to see release in 2025 actually did start development more than a decade ahead of its official release, all that initial progress eventually fizzled out, and a the Minecraft movie became an entirely new beast over the years.
The iteration we’re set to see hit theaters in April really got moving in 2019, when it changed directors and adopted a fresh direction. It was initially slated for a 2022 release, but constant issues, paired with the COVID-19 pandemic, shoved that date back to mid-2025.
Who’s making the Minecraft movie?
The production companies behind the incoming Minecraft film are no strangers to video game adaptations. The film is set to be produced by Legendary Pictures, in conjunction with Mojang Studios, Vertigo Entertainment, and On the Roam, some of the same companies that brought us the horror shows — and not in a good way — that are the Dead Rising films. Yep, those exist.
Then there’s Warner Bros. Pictures, which is set to distribute the flick. The massive company is responsible for several failed video game attempts in the past, including those old Angelina Jolie Tomb Raider films and 2016’s Warcraft misfire.
The Minecraft movie cast and director
If there’s one thing the Minecraft movie has going for it, it’s the cast. The film already sports an excellent — and hugely popular — lineup of stars, many of whom have carried successful franchises on their shoulders in the past. Already tapped to appear in the film are Jason Momoa, Jack Black, and Jennifer Coolidge, a starting lineup that already feels like guaranteed success. Even if the film isn’t great, its all but guaranteed this trio will make it enjoyable.
Then there’s the addition of Emma Myers, who fans will recognize as Wednesday‘s Enid Sinclair, alongside up-and-comer Sebastian Eugene Hansen and the stunning Danielle Brooks of Peacemaker and The Color Purple fame. They’re the only cast to be revealed thus far, but all of them sport enough talent to make even a bare-bones premise wonderfully watchable.
Add in director Jared Hess, who film fans will recognize from his work, in collaboration with his wife, on films like Napoleon Dynamite, Nacho Libre, and Netflix’s Thelma the Unicorn, and you’ve got what appears to be a winning formula. But can they make a movie about Minecraft land? That’s yet to be seen.
What’s the Minecraft plot?
Thus far, the revealed plot for Minecraft is pretty bare. It’s still a good way out, so it’s common for films to be little more than two-sentence descriptions at this stage, but that same lack of information could spell doom for the film. Sure, a flick that describes its plot as “the malevolent Ender Dragon sets out on a path of destruction, prompting a young girl and her group of unlikely adventurers to set out to save the Overworld” sounds interesting, but it also barely tells us anything.
Nor do more recent descriptions of the film, which add in notes about a group of “misfits” who are “struggling with ordinary problems when they are suddenly pulled through a mysterious portal into the Overworld” or that fringe mention of Steve, all of which really don’t tell us a single thing about the movie. And, when you’re building a whole film around a truly bare-bones story, it sparks concern when your own direction feels like it matches.