Borderlands, you are in luck. Just days after Sony’s embarrassing bomb proved so poor it was dumped on streaming only three weeks into its theatrical run, another studio has valiantly come along to tease a video game adaptation that might be even worse. It seems the makers of A Minecraft Movie saw all the Borderlands hate and said: “They thought that was a soulless monstrosity? Hold my beer Razzie award, let’s get a trailer together and show them what we’ve got cooking.”
After threatening to exist for a full decade, a Minecraft film is now materializing in our dimension from the nightmarish AI-controlled, IP-dominated dystopian future it apparently hails from. On paper, a spin on the smash-hit sandbox game starring the likes of Jason Momoa, Jack Black, and Kate McKinnon — the latter two of whom have already managed to pull off surprisingly successful adaptations, in The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Barbie — sounds like it could be fun. Tragically, the first teaser trailer detonates that fallacy with the cruel and instant force of a creeper explosion.
Perhaps taking a misguided lesson from The LEGO Movie, which cleverly weaved live-action sequences into its animated narrative, A Minecraft Movie has elected to drop real people into the blocky, pixellated reality of the game. The aim may have been to capture some of the magic and wonder of the family films of yesteryear, like Mary Poppins, but thanks to some shockingly dissonant CGI rendering, it seems to be operating on the same level of technical flair as the guy living in the cartoon house from Blues Clues.
As A Minecraft Movie looks it was made in 1995, it may leave you wondering if Warner Bros. got particularly stingy on this release and didn’t hand the filmmakers the requisite money they needed to adapt this global sensation to the big screen. So how big or small was its price tag? Depending on how cynical you are about moviemaking today, its true budget may shock you.
A Minecraft Movie‘s budget is a lot higher than it looks
At present, official budgetary information for A Minecraft Movie has yet to be revealed, but we are aware of what the preliminary budget for the film was. And that’s already on the hefty side, so we know this thing ate up money faster than you guzzling all the cookies in your inventory when you’ve only got one heart left.
Back in 2015, It’s Always Sunny‘s own Rob McElhenney was hired to direct, with the actor/filmmaker revealing that he was drawn to the project by the faith Warner Bros. displayed in it, given that they immediately gifted him an initial budget of $150 million. The film was ultimately helmed by Napoleon Dynamite veteran Jared Hess, but we can safely assume many more costs built up over that long pre-production period and during the casting, filming, and post-production phases.
Even if the budget remained at $150 million, however, this would still make A Minecraft Movie even more expensive than Borderlands, which cost Sony $120 million. Given the ample funds at their disposal, it seems the film’s team deliberately wanted it to look like the fever dream someone might have if they had been playing the game all day after eating some particularly potent mushrooms. This wouldn’t be the first time Warner Bros. has pulled this trick, either — don’t forget, The Flash‘s CGI cameos were intentionally uncanny.
For the studio’s sake, let’s hope this mine leads to the ton of gold and diamond ore execs are hoping for. A Minecraft Movie is coming to dig for your money on April 4, 2025.