(Updated 02/28/2025)
Any parent with children older than four or five is probably familiar with the video game "Minecraft." (If you don't know the game, it allows players to build entire worlds out of blocks, and it is unusually addictive.) The fervor with which those kids (and millions of other players) approach the game tells you why a MINECRAFT movie has been on the minds of producers for a long time. Really, the only surprising thing about the movie is that it took so long to make.
Now, after years of development and a lot of different creative directions, A MINECRAFT MOVIE is nearly here. It has a couple of big names in starring roles, and the trailers reveal just how the game's blocky world has been turned into a film. Here’s everything you need to know about A MINECRAFT MOVIE.
A Minecraft Movie Arrives This Spring
A MINECRAFT MOVIE will be released in theaters on April 4, 2025.
Watch the New Trailer for A Minecraft Movie
The latest trailer for A MINECRAFT MOVIE reveals more about how the movie approaches the game's building block approach to world-building and storytelling than we've seen before. It also explains a bit more of the story and the landscapes of the film. For fans of the game, that's probably the most important part.
Who Stars in Minecraft?
The somewhat surprising star of MINECRAFT is Jason Momoa. The burly, long-haired AQUAMAN star is not who we expected to see toplining this movie. As the trailer shows, he plays a character who is very much not his usual type. He's one of the humans who ends up in Minecraft's blocky digital works. His character, Garrett “The Garbage Man” Garrison, is a former video game champ who hasn't quite made the transition to his next phase in life. (And he seems to be inspired by real-life video game player Billy Mitchell.)
He explores alongside Henry (Sebastian Eugene Hansen of JUST MERCY), Natalie (Emma Myers of "Wednesday”) and Dawn (Danielle Brooks of THE COLOR PURPLE).
They meet the expert crafter, Steve (Jack Black) and also run across characters played by Jennifer Coolidge (seen at the end of the new trailer), Kate McKinnon, and Jemaine Clement.
Why A Minecraft Movie Is Not Animated
It's easy to assume that the block-building game would lend itself to animated storytelling, and that is certainly true. But one thing we have known about A MINECRAFT MOVIE for a while is that it will be live-action. Not everyone knew that fact, however!
Minecraft senior director of original content Torfi Frans Olafsson told IGN that fans "have seen a bunch of content obviously that's been made both by us, the community, we've made a story mode. We made animated content before, and there's a lot of it out there. But that was also one of the reasons why the filmmakers wanted to go with live action rather than animate it, rather than do something that's been done before.”
Furthermore, as the trailers bear out, the line between live-action and animation is somewhat blurry here. The main characters are clearly live-action but the world in which they exist is primarily animated — it's not like the cast is running around in fields of foam blocks!
The Director of Minecraft
The man behind the camera for MINECRAFT is also a surprising choice. The director is Jared Hess, who broke out with NAPOLEON DYNAMITE and has since made movies like NACHO LIBRE and MASTERMINDS.
In November, Hess explained his approach to the movie. "For us, it just felt really fun to take a group of unlikely heroes, underdogs, and throw them into this world and put them on this crazy adventure, and ultimately having them kind of experience as you create in the game, but being able to craft your own destiny. And we just kind of took that concept and ran with it."
MINECRAFT opens on April 4.
All images courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.