A Minecraft miracle

"A Minecraft Movie" blew past projections at the box office. But it may also be a warning for the theater business.

“A Minecraft Movie.” (Warner Bros.)

The Gist

• “A Minecraft Movie” is expected to make around $140 million this weekend, blowing past projections.

• The response to the movie further illustrates what content young people are interested in, and how they interact with it.

• The movie’s success also reiterates that video games are the new hot Hollywood IP.

Do you know what a “chicken jockey” is?

I didn’t before today, when I saw videos circling social media of movie theater crowds going absolutely ballistic during a scene in the new video game adaptation, Warner Bros.’ “A Minecraft Movie.” Like, “Avengers: Endgame” levels of cheering. For the uninitiated, it’s basically when a zombie rides a chicken…I guess.

I’ve never played a single second of “Minecraft,” but I’m in the minority: it’s the best-selling video game of all time. So the movie’s success this weekend — around $140 million domestically in its first three days, by far the biggest opening of the year so far — shouldn’t be a surprise.

Yet, leading up to the movie’s release, few industry observers (including myself) thought it could be as big as it seems like it will be. According to analyst

Shawn Robbins

, the movie’s pre-release tracking was significantly behind another game-based movie, “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” until just a week ago, when pre-sales suddenly skyrocketed.

“A Minecraft Movie’s” success is a welcome change of pace for the box office, which has been downright depressing so far this year. But it’s also a warning for the movie business of something we’ve known for a while: audience habits are changing rapidly.

Those social media videos I mentioned earlier are an indication that young people are consuming and interested in different kinds of content than previous generations. According to a Pew Research Center survey last year of over 1,400 American teens ages 13-17, 85% say they play video games and 41% do so daily.

Simply put, gaming is an essential part of teens’ lives. And they’re going to interact with content differently than older generations; there’s a huge overlap between gaming and YouTube or other social video platforms, so it’s inevitable that young people would be posting videos from in the theater onto social media.

For traditionalists like myself, this is heresy. But it’s something the theatrical industry is obviously thinking about. If theaters want to compete with all the other content and screens in young people’s lives, they will probably have to adapt or die. At the annual CinemaCon exhibitor conference in Vegas last week, the CEO of Regal didn’t exactly shut down the idea of screenings that allow cell phone use in the future.

But make no mistake: it’s not just Gen Z and Alpha that play games. An Entertainment Software Association survey last year found that 190 million Americans play for at least one hour each week — and that the average age of a player is 36.

This all aligns with the audience makeup of the “Minecraft” movie this weekend: nearly 80% of attendees were 35 years old or younger.

It’s also further indication that video games are the new hot IP in Hollywood. After the success of “Super Mario” (over $1 billion globally), “Five Nights” (nearly $300 million off of a $20 million budget), and now Minecraft — along with TV hits like HBO’s “Last of Us” and Amazon’s “Fallout” — it’s clear that Hollywood will continue to mine gaming IP, and craft movies and shows out of them (sorry).

I’ve previously written about what games are ripe for adaptations, based on insights from research firm Omdia. To reiterate, “Elden Ring,” which has sold nearly 30 million copies, is an obvious answer. “Dead Space” is less obvious, but “Alien: Romulus” (already basically a “Dead Space” movie) showed there’s an appetite for mid-budget sci-fi horror.

But then again, “A Minecraft Movie” once again proved the old William Goldman adage, “nobody knows anything.” I thought that movie would either flop or be a mild hit — not be in the billion-dollar conversation.

FWIW, here are a few video game movies and shows set for release in the near future:

• “The Last of Us” season 2 — April 13

• “Until Dawn” — April 25

• “Mortal Kombat 2” — Oct. 24

• “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” — Dec. 5

• “Street Fighter” — March 20, 2026

• “Super Mario Bros. Movie 2” — April 3, 2026

Beyond the Traverse

🎮 The Nintendo Switch 2 launches on June 5 — but pre-orders were delayed because of uncertainty over Trump’s tariffs.

🗡️ Ubisoft created a new subsidiary for its major franchises like Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry.

🧹 Warner Bros. canceled a “Hogwarts Legacy” game extension despite that being the best-selling game of 2023.

🦇 DC Studios co-CEO Peter Safran says that the shelved Batgirl movie was “not releasable” as a theatrical movie and “would have hurt DC.”

🤖 Deadline found that some major movie studios were profiting off of ad revenue from user-generated fake AI-created trailers, rather than taking action against them.