Summary
A Minecraft Moviehas stormed into theaters since its release earlier this April. The film isn’t exactly an auteur production, and critics have taken aim at the story’s ironic lack of imagination. But it does have an audience… a faithful, rowdy, noisy audience.
A Minecraft Movieis just the latest addition in a growing trend of video game adaptations. Studios like Illumination Entertainment have greatly profited from collaborations withNintendo to createThe Super Mario Bros. Movie(2023), the highest-grossing film ever to be based on a video game. HBO and Prime Video have found lauded critical success developing gaming properties likeThe Last of UsandFallout. The longevity of this market is limitless. The dominant media market is gaming, and it’s not even close. The industry is $200-plus billion globally. That makes it larger than all the film, television, and music markets, and it’s expected to continue growing. So, for the foreseeable future, studios will be scrambling to find the next big hit with gamers.
A Minecraft Movieis seemingly following in the footsteps of big video game blockbusters recently. While not a critical hit, currently sitting at 46% on Rotten Tomatoes, the film is on track to dominate the domestic and international box office.A Minecraft Movieis the first theatrical release in 2025 to make over $200 million domestically in North America, having only been in theaters for just one week. Compared to some of Hollywood’s other tentpole films last year, this will be a welcome sign for an industry that has been viewed by many to be on a downward trend since COVID-19.A Minecraft Movie’sbox office currently sits at $351.1 million andis expected to even surpassThe Super Mario Bros. Moviedomestically, having already easily taken the lead when comparing their opening weekends.
It’s not only had an explosive financial start to its release, as audiences have literally been causing anti-social disruption.TheBBCreports that a Cineworldcinema in the UK has put up signs warning people that they will be removed from the theater without a refund if they do “anything that may disturb the other guests, such as loud screaming, and shouting.” This decision follows a massive trend inflamed through online recordings of young fans disrupting viewings by roaring, howling, and distracting from the film with multiple applause breaks. These moments are usually triggered by fan-servicing references, particularly lines uttered by Jack Black: “I… am Steve.“Or when Black ignites the Nether portal using the iconic “Flint and steel!”
This One Audience Has Been Making Themselves Heard - And They Are Rowdy
Despite the film’s wild success, many voices have judged the quality of the film to be at the low end of the video game adaptation genre. The movie is mostly compiled of a series of cringeworthy interactions between its live-action cast and different elements of the Minecraft Overworld. It’s visually very flat, looking nowhere close to the original game’s design, opting for an overcatoonish CGI aesthetic.This makes the live-action characters all the more uncanny, as they are never successfully blended into their environments. The plot of this story is extremely thin and regularly punctuated with those pandering references. For being the most middle-of-the-road version of a Minecraft movie, it makes the film feel very inaccessible to general audiences. So, who is this adaptation for?
Given their insane and blaring reactions, it appears this film is forMinecraftfans. The die-hard, hardcoreMinecraftfans who grew up loving the game. Minecraft has a total number of over 170 million players per month, and they have come out in droves to squeal in delight. These fans have not just been stacking oak planks and crafting armor since they were kids; they’ve been fed an internet culture of memes around the game. This has only exacerbated their excitement for those all-important referential moments in the film delivered withJack Black’s classic, over-the-top zeal.
They’re frenzied hype isn’t solely limited to audible noise. Cineworld Cinemas took precautionary action to eject disruptors because, across the US, fans have been throwing their popcorn and drinks in the air, showering other audience members. Families have had to leaveA Minecraft Movieearly because they have been drenched, which would ruin any regular moviegoer’s experience. One scene in particular, which introduces the Chicken Jockey, has provoked a feral response. In the UK, Cineworld has realized the lucrative potential of this fan furor and announced a selection of special screenings where fans can go wild:
“To ensure everyone has a blast, we ask that all cinemagoers respect cinema etiquette. For fans wanting to whoop, yelp and clap their way through this block-busting adventure, we have created special Chicken Jockey 4DX screenings at Cineworld cinemas nationwide.”
Cineworld’s warnings to hyped fansand their encouragement of this behavior in selected viewings demonstrate that this film has a really engaged audience. It’s certainly not the general viewing public or critics that have deridedA Minecraft Movie.However, the box office and online conversation stand as a testament to whom this movie relates to. A generation of Minecraft enthusiasts who unabashedly loved the game, as cringeworthy as some of the film’s dialogue might be.
