5 Reasons Why A Minecraft Movie Crushed It At The Box Office

The weekend that the movie industry at large had been waiting for finally arrived. Warner Bros. released "A Minecraft Movie" this past weekend, and to say that it is a hit would be a dramatic understatement. Director Jared Hess' take on the wildly popular "Minecraft" video game absolutely demolished pre-release box office projections to post the biggest theatrical opening of 2025 thus far, breaking records and shocking the industry in a positive way. We've got a major blockbuster on our hands and it couldn't have come soon enough.

"A Minecraft Movie" opened to an estimated $163 million domestically to go with $150.7 million overseas for a whopping $313.7 million global debut. That's now the biggest domestic three-day opening weekend ever for a video game movie, topping 2023's "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" ($146.3 million). "Mario" opened to $377 million globally across a five-day holiday opening. "Minecraft" had a standard three-day opening so it is, more or less, in the same ballpark. Mind you, "Mario" finished its run with over $1.3 billion worldwide.

Prior to this weekend, domestic ticket sales were lagging way behind this same point in 2024 and leagues behind pre-pandemic levels. Theaters badly needed a hit of this size after movies like Disney's live-action "Snow White" bombed earlier this year. More than a hit, this looks to be just the start of a big, new franchise. So, what went right here? How did this film fly so ridiculously high above expectations? We're going to look at the biggest reasons why "A Minecraft Movie" became a box office sensation. Let's get into it.

Critics may have been a little mixed on "A Minecraft Movie," but what mattered here is that the video game adaptation resonated with its intended audience in a big, bad way. "Minecraft" is literally the best-selling video game in history, and it's particularly big with younger folks. Hess and WB seemingly did right by them. The movie carries a not-so-great 47% critical approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but a solid 87% audience score. That's the key.

It also earned a decent B+ on CinemaScore, though WB would surely have liked to see that push to an A. In any event, the gap between critics and audiences here is crystal clear. It's not unlike what happened with "Five Nights at Freddy's" in 2023, which made nearly $300 million globally despite being a complete critical misfire. Audiences simply disagreed.

/Film's Witney Seibold called "A Minecraft Movie" a "broad, slapstick farce without a hint of seriousness" in his review, while also adding that "it's not terrible." It wasn't about making a serious movie. It was about making a movie that stayed true to what people loved about the game while having some fun along the way.

It might have been tempting for Warner Bros. to release this movie in the dead of summer, as it's easy to see the appeal as a summer film. After all, it's not just a big blockbuster based on a beloved franchise, but it's also a family movie. It's got summer tentpole written all over it. At the same time, the summer season is always crowded, and sometimes the right movie can make a lot more money by not competing for those same, somewhat limited dollars. "A Minecraft Movie" did precisely that.

With "Snow White" flopping and "Captain America: Brave New World" failing to light the box office on fire earlier this year, the path was completely clear for Warner Bros. to dominate with this movie. Not only was there no direct competition, but there was also arguably pent-up demand for a big crowd-pleaser. To make matters even better for the studio, we don't have another outright blockbuster arriving until Marvel's "Thunderbolts*" in the first weekend of May. By then, this movie could be well on its way to $1 billion. In light of its reported $150 million production budget, it's going to be a massive win for all involved. Expect a sequel to be announced any day now. 

The odd thing about modern Hollywood is that being a movie star doesn't mean what it used to. One can be famous, but does that really mean anything as far as delivering at the box office is concerned? It's only in very rare cases where that seems to be true. Daisy Ridley can't seem to catch a break outside of "Star Wars," for example. That's why it's very important to highlight the Jack Black factor here, as he is unquestionably a meaningful movie star at this point.

Black, whose credits range from "School of Rock" to "Goosebumps," has been a beloved actor for decades now. But in recent years, he's truly proven his star power to the world. Let us not forget that he played Bowser in "The Super Mario Bros. Movie." Last year's "Kung Fu Panda 4" also proved Black's abilities as an A-list star, with the film going on to earn nearly $550 million worldwide. The "Jumanji" movies have also been monster hits in no small part thanks to his participation.

Yes, having Jason Momoa of "Aquaman" fame and "Wednesday" star Emma Myers on board certainly helped, but not as much as having Black on board as Steve. At this point, it's clear that the catastrophic failure of "Borderlands" can't be blamed on Black (he merely voiced a robot in that big, live-action misfire). Most of the time, audiences will turn up to see him, plain and simple. That helped here, no question about it.

Another thing that's tough to deny is the appeal of a PG movie. In the pandemic era, time and time again, we've seen family-friendly movies overperform against expectations. Aside from "Mario," we can look at stuff like "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish," "Wonka," and the $1 billion hit that was Disney's "Moana 2," among others, as other examples of this. This list goes on. Well beyond opening weekend, these movies demonstrate the ability to hang around, weekend after weekend, for months on end. That's rare in recent years.

Who knows how many pitches Warner Bros. fielded for its adaptation of "Minecraft" over the years before landing on this iteration? Maybe there was a "gritty" version. Maybe there was a PG-13 version. What's crystal clear is that not everything needs to be gritty or appeal more exclusively to older audiences. Getting families out to the movies is a winning strategy that was employed perfectly by the studio with this property. It certainly didn't hurt that it managed to appeal to gamers who are fans of "Minecraft" as well, but the family factor can't be ignored here, particularly in the weeks to come.

More than anything, "A Minecraft Movie" serves to demonstrate that Hollywood cannot continue to ignore Gen Z moviegoers. For decades now, the box office has been propped up by nostalgia plays, with reboots of '80s franchises like "Transformers" leading the way. In recent years, however, those franchise plays have become less and less reliable, in no small part because the people that helped make them hits 10 or 15 years ago have aged out and moved on to other things. It's time to start catering to Gen Z, just as Blumhouse did very successfully with "Five Nights at Freddy's."

It's not necessarily important that studio executives understand why skeletons made of cubes are important to younger moviegoers, just in the same way it wasn't important for them to understand why getting a comic-accurate "Deadpool" was important to that audience. It's just important that they cater to the very sizable audience that exists and does so in a faithful way. For years, video game movies were downright lousy. Hollywood has moved on from that. The next step, be it a video game or what have you, is to more regularly create new franchises aimed at the upcoming generation. It can't all be nostalgia plays aimed at 40-year-olds.

"A Minecraft Movie" is in theaters now.