The big screen adaptation of the video game Mega-Franchise Minecraft brought in $58 million on Friday, bringing it to a $135 million opening weekend, or potentially more.
This gave “Minecraft Movie” the biggest opening of the year, beating “Captain America: Brave New World” (which earned $88.8 million over the opening weekend in February), greatly boosting the theatre’s box office. ComScore estimates that domestic box office revenues have recently declined 7% year-on-year in 2025, adding to a significant decline from pre-pandemic times.
Come to the Rescue: Video games, especially video games for kids, may soon eat up superhero comics as the most reliable template for Hollywood blockbusters. “The Super Mario Brothers Movie” was one of 2023’s biggest hits (behind “Barbie” only), and “Sonic The Hedgehog 3” was a huge success in the recent winter break.
The Minecraft game, first developed by Marcus “Notch” Persson and acquired by Microsoft in 2014, has 204 million active users per month in December. However, they also raised certain challenges as they provide virtual sandboxes for these players rather than specific stories or sets of adapted characters.
Directed by Jared Hess (best known for his work on “Napoleon Dynamite”), six screenwriters, “Minecraft Movie” meets these challenges by transporting human characters (played by Jason Momoa, Jack Black and others) into a fantasy world animated in the famous Brocky Minnecraft style. The film has received mixed reviews, and so has since been the same with the Super Mario Bros. Films.
The big weekend of “A Minecraft Movie” has also been welcome news for Warner Bros., with its film division enduring a series of flops, including “The Alto Knights” and “Joker: Folie a deux.” So it’s safe to assume you’ll probably see a sequel.