A Minecraft Movie had the best US opening weekend ever for a video game adaptation
Warner Bros. Pictures
A Minecraft Movie opened this weekend to a resounding success, bringing in $301 million worldwide and $157 million in the United States alone. It’s already surpassed its production budget of $150 million. It’s on track to be more successful than the Super Mario Bros. Movie, which holds the current record for the most successful animated movie. After an initially rocky reception from its first trailers, A Minecraft Movie seems to have turned things around.
The movie stars Jack Black, Jason Momoa, Jennifer Coolidge, and several more big names and is directed by Jared Hess, the mind behind cult-classic films like Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre. It centers on Steve, the main character from the titular game (played by Jack Black) and a group of four misfits who are sucked through a portal to the Overworld. If you’ve played Minecraft before — and at this point, it would be more surprising if you hadn’t — most of the elements in the film will be familiar to you.
A Minecraft Movie is a love letter to one of the most popular games in the world. It features the characteristic blocky textures, all of the adorably square-shaped critters, and even the Piglins — a race of humanoid, pig-like creatures that inhabit the Nether.
The idea for the movie first came about in 2014 when Markus Pearsson (better known as Notch) announced he was in talks with Warner Bros Pictures to develop the film. The movie moved from studio to studio for several years before finding a home at Legendary Entertainment around 2022. It might have taken some time to finish, but the end result looks to speak for itself. A Minecraft Movie premiered on April 4 and has already seen tremendous success, and it’s likely to skyrocket even higher in the weeks to come as more fans make their way to theatres.
Patrick Hearn writes about smart home technology like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, smart light bulbs, and more. If it’s a…
10 years ago, Christopher Nolan made his most emotional movie ever. Here’s why it’s still the best
Director Christopher Nolan’s epic sci-fi blockbuster Interstellar premiered in theaters 10 years ago this week. This sprawling space odyssey follows astronaut Joseph Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) and his team as they venture through a wormhole to find a new planet for humanity to inhabit as it faces extinction due to Earth’s growing blight.
Though it is not as highly revered as The Dark Knight, Inception, or Oppenheimer, Interstellar continues to be one of the best films Nolan ever directed. Nominated for five Academy Awards, such a sprawling, dazzling, and emotional film made for the best astronaut movie since Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Nolan’s masterpiece already has a devoted following, but it’s important to remind audiences why Interstellar is such a beloved and groundbreaking sci-fi epic.
Hans Zimmer’s score supports the movie’s epic scope
Interstellar Main Theme – Extra Extended – Soundtrack by Hans Zimmer
Best Marvel movies in MCU’s Phase Four, ranked
Many consider Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe a low point for the franchise. After the MCU seemingly peaked with Avengers: Endgame, Marvel Studios succumbed to the weight of its ambition as it tried to appeal to audiences and create so much content in so little time.
Nevertheless, the MCU did produce some shining gems like Shang-Chi and Spider-Man: No Way Home, displaying great promise with its ongoing Multiverse Saga. While the franchise has struggled to regain its footing, it’s only fair to remind fans of its merits by exploring the worst and best films in Phase Four.
7. Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
30 years ago, this movie gave video game adaptations a bad name
Long before director Uwe Boll stunk up the video game movie genre with House of the Dead, BloodRayne, Postal, Far Cry, and more, Hollywood’s earliest attempts to bring gaming franchises to the big screen were dismal failures. For the worst offender, movie historians might point to 1993’s Super Mario Bros., the live-action cinematic bomb that drove Nintendo out of Hollywood for three decades until The Super Mario Bros. Movie brought the company back in 2023. That was definitely a terrible film, but it wasn’t until 1994’s Double Dragon movie that video game adaptations found a new low.
1994 was also the year that the Street Fighter movie hit theaters with a bravura performance by the late Raul Julia as well as a hilariously awful turn by Jean-Claude Van Damme. That film is at least fun to watch, which is more than we can say for Double Dragon. The source material for Double Dragon was a 1987 arcade game — and its sequels — that allowed up to two players to take control of Billy and Jimmy Lee as they went up against a gang called the Black Warriors to rescue Billy’s kidnapped girlfriend, Marian. It wasn’t exactly On the Waterfront, but most of the games from that era weren’t big on story.
