Jack Black will appear as Steve in the upcoming Minecraft movie. That’s not surprising, given how prolific Black has been in franchise movies. What is surprising is how amateurish the movie looks at a glance. And, of course, it’s going to make basically infinite money.
Wait, There’s a Minecraft Movie?
Yes, there’s a Minecraft movie coming out. In fact, it’s called A Minecraft Movie. With such a twee name and a cast consisting of Jack Black and Jason Momoa, you can rest assured that this is being marketed at kids first and foremost. It’s slated to hit theaters on April 4, 2025, but longtime fans aren’t as thrilled as you’d expect.
Weird-Looking Trailer
The movie just looks outright weird from its teaser trailer. Strangely, the studio decided to use real human actors in a CGI setting. While the normal Minecraft blockiness is everywhere in the background, the human actors are just… normal. They clash immensely with their surroundings, giving everything a weirdly low-rent look.
Why Do They Look Like That?
Weirdly, the enemies and animals of Minecraft’s world are also rendered in a quasi-realistic form, though they retain their block-like shapes. Taste is subjective, but, subjectively, this just looks creepy. The monsters look like wireframes with leather stretched over them! It’s unappealing! Do kids like this aesthetic? Are they supposed to?
Jack Black
Then there’s also the Jack Black of it all. Casting him to voice video game characters is nothing new. He was excellent as Bowser in the Mario Bros movie, and he was one of the actors who appeared in the dreadful Borderlands adaptation as the voice of Claptrap. This live action look for him, however, is causing fans some concern.
That’s Not Steve
Black appears in the teaser spot wearing a blue T-shirt and otherwise looking like… Jack Black. He hasn’t gotten a haircut or trimmed his beard. He basically looks like he just rolled out of bed, showed up on set, and the director said “action.” That’s not what Steve looks like in Minecraft, even before you get into the weird decision to use live action actors instead of animated characters for this adaptation.
Why Is This a Thing?
The most obvious question that pops up here is “why would Warner Bros do this?” The answer is pretty simple. Minecraft is the best-selling game ever by a wide margin and is still seeing tons of new players pour into it even 14 years after it was initially released. The studio stands to make basically infinite money on this. The Mario movie was regarded as “pretty decent” and made a killing at the box office.
Video Game Movie Resurgence
Between Mario, Sonic, and Detective Pikachu, game studios have started seeing dollar signs at the box office. It’s understandable that Microsoft would want a cut of that with their tremendously popular franchise. But that doesn’t explain why they didn’t follow the Mario movie’s other example: making the movie animated.
Animation Could Have Saved This Thing
The movie has a way to go before it hits theaters. But it doesn’t seem likely that it’s going to look much better by the time it’s released. Many fans have explicitly mentioned that it could have looked a lot more visually pleasing had it just been a computer animated movie that more closely resembled the game it’s actually based on.
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It Will Make Money
Minecraft is huge. If you’re out of the loop, it’s still the best-selling game ever, has absurd playtime numbers, and sells tons of merch every Halloween and Christmas. People who grew up with the series love it, kids who just started playing it last week love it, and the game isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. So, suffice it to say, this movie is going to be huge.
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Kids Are Going to Love It
The trailer makes one thing obvious. This movie is going to be marketing squarely at kids. It’s easy to see why Warner Bros would go in this direction, after all. Kids love Minecraft! Still, longtime fans of the series likely wish they’d taken the source material more seriously and treated this as a chance to make a compelling love letter to the block-placing game instead of making it a garishly ugly cash-in.
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