'A Minecraft Movie' Further Digs Up Videogame Gold
Rebecca Rubin
It's almost like there is something to this videogame-to-movie trend:
“A Minecraft Movie” leveled up at the box office, collecting a blockbuster $157 million in its opening weekend. It’s not only the biggest domestic debut of the year but the best in history for a video game adaptation.
Heading into the weekend, Warner Bros. and Legendary’s PG fantasy comedy, starring Jack Black and Jason Momoa, was projected to take in $70 million to $80 million, with some bullish analysts suggesting a final number closer to $90 million.
Thanks to pent-up demand for a family film, broad appeal and goodwill toward the 2011 video game, however, “Minecraft” squashed expectations in the U.S. and abroad. At the international box office, the tentpole added $144 million for a global start of $301 million. The film cost $150 million to produce before global marketing expenses.
The opening is massive no matter which way you slice the numbers, but the doubling of the projections (undoubtedly sandbagged a bit by the studio just in case) is wild. Though it's also pretty surprising that the projections were all below $100M. I'm of the age now where I judge such movies based off of my kids, and this is the first time that I recall my daughter specifically asking me to take her to see a movie.1
It's also continuing the trend of videogame IP being pure gold at the box office:
“A Minecraft Movie” is based on one of the best-selling video games in history, but that kind of association doesn’t always guarantee success in Hollywood. (Just ask the backers of last year’s “Borderlands.”) However, game-based films have fielded more hits than misses of late with “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” “Sonic the Hedgehog” and Tom Holland’s “Uncharted” all scoring at the box office.
Trends, as implied, tend to ebb and flow. And I'm old enough to remember when videogame adaptations were pure poison at the box office – dating all the way back to the first time they tried to adapt the Super Mario Bros. But just as was the case with comic book-based IP, things don't work until they suddenly do – in a major way.2 And those two categories in particular shouldn't be hugely surprising given the nostalgia elements at play on top of the appeal to younger demographics.
All of that is to say is that Nintendo might want to fast track The Legend of Zelda movie. Again, things ebb and flow and 2027 is a long ways away. Then again, I'm just impatient having been waiting for it for years and years. But come on, videogames are now bigger than Jesus – quite literally, at the box office.3
One more thing: it's interesting how few of the articles about this box office bonanza mention Microsoft, which of course bought Minecraft parent Mojang over a decade ago, in one of the first moves by newly appointed CEO at the time, Satya Nadella. But here's one such mention by Brooks Barnes in The New York Times (in noting how much credit Legendary gets for this one):
But credit for “A Minecraft Movie” also belongs to Legendary.
After struggling for years to come up with the right director, story, structure and tone, Warner Bros. brought on Legendary as a “Minecraft” partner in 2019. A clock was ticking: Microsoft, which owns Mojang, the company behind the game, was growing impatient. In addition to financing, Legendary offered producing prowess.
Mary Parent, Legendary’s vice chairman, pushed out the film’s director, Peter Sollett, and helped recruit Jared Hess, known for instilling films like “Nacho Libre” and “Napoleon Dynamite” with awkward humor, as his replacement. Mr. Momoa (“Aquaman”) and the madcap Mr. Black (“Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle”) joined the cast.
“Mary and her team reimagined the take, brought on Jared and developed a movie that honors the fans while still being accessible for the general audience,” Josh Grode, Legendary’s chief executive, said in a statement. “This is a great win for Warner Bros., for Legendary and the theatrical box office.”
Again, what about Microsoft?! Surely they must be getting rewarded handsomely for owning this IP, right? The huge success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie touted Nintendo's win over and over again, but seemingly crickets for Microsoft here...
M.G. Siegler
1 To be clear and fair, she asks my wife to take her to see movies quite often, but this one as directed at me — that's right, dad! And perhaps that was because we had just watched The Super Mario Bros. Movie together, so I perhaps set her up for this inevitable demand...
2 Also don't forget the recent streaming successes like Fallout and The Last of Us...
3 And a certain band once said to be bigger than Jesus gets their film treatment(s) in 2028...