“A Minecraft Movie was the big winner its debut weekend, earning a shocking $301 million globally.”, — write: www.dailymail.co.uk
The film, starring Jack Black, Jason Momoa and Jennifer Coolidge, had a built in audience thanks to the video game which inspired the live action romp.
Moviegoers in the US turned over $157 million, while earning another $144 million internationally.
The Minecraft video game was introduced in 2011 and has sold more than 300 million copies an players young and old due to their ability to use their creativity and create their own worlds, structures, and tools.
The movie includes a lot of slapstick including a fight between Mamoa’s Garrett and a baby zombie on a chicken.
‘I had to use a lot of imagination,’ Momoa told his co-star in an interview for Fandango, ‘But when I saw the movie – hilarious,’ adding, ‘It’s one of the funniest moments.’
Black, who stars as Steve in the adventure, has been a longtime player of the game, and contributed to the soundtrack, he said on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
‘They wanted a song at the end of the movie that wraps up the whole… and they got the guys that wrote I’m Just Ken from Barbie, and I was like Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt? And so we jammed on it and wrote it together,’
The film received a low 48-percent score from the critics at Rotten Tomatoes, but an 87-percent approval rating from audiences.
The rankings were very similar to Snow White, which received a 40-percent critics score and a 73-percent audience rating.
However, A Minecraft movie was not plagued by the controversy of being ‘woke’.
Rachel Zegler, who was cast in the title role looks the part, but some die-hard fans were upset that Zegler, who identifies as Columbian-American was cast to portray the Disney princess.
In the 1937 animated tale, the character was so named due to her skin being as ‘white as snow.’
In 2025’s Snow White, the moniker was derived from the heroine being born during a snow storm. As result of the casting, online trolls referred to the project as ‘Snow Woke,’ especially by right-wing agitators unhappy that a Latina was cast as the star
Statements by Zegler, made without consulting the studio also caused derision.
There was blowback in January 2022 from another source, actor Peter Dinklage, complained about one aspect of the film on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast.
‘You’re progressive in one way, and you’re still making that backwards story about seven dwarfs living in a cave? Have I done nothing to advance the cause from my soapbox?’
Rumors of discord between Gal Gadot, who starred as the Evil Queen and Zegler were tabloid fodder leading up to the movie’s release.
A source told People that the age gap between the Wonder Woman star and Zeglar resulted in the pair having ‘nothing in common,’ adding the two also had differing political views.
Snow White dropped to fourth place with a domestic box office of $6.08 million. Globally the live action adventure has earned $168.3 million, far below its $350 million production and marketing budget.
Last week’s number one, A Working Man, starring Jason Statham dropped to as a distant second.
Statham stars as a former spy who returns to the field to rescue a young woman who has vanished.
The thriller survived poor reviews to more than $7.2 million domestically and another $16.6 million internationally for a global box office of $44.4 million.
Third place went to The Chosen: Last Supper part two with some $6.7 million in ticket sales.
The showing consisted of three episodes of the popular series which focuses on Jesus’ ministry.
With Easter approaching, Angel Studios, which produces the show, has been debuting them in movie theaters.
Part 3 was scheduled to debut three more episodes on April 11.
The spooky The Woman in the Yard rounded out the top five.
The fright flick about a woman covered in black who delivers chilling warnings to Daniel Deadwyler and her family earned $4.5 million its second weekend in theaters.