The big screen adaptation of video game mega-franchise Minecraft brought in $58 million on Friday, putting it on-track for a $135 million opening weekend domestically — or potentially even more.
That would give “A Minecraft Movie” the biggest opening of the year, beating out “Captain America: Brave New World” (which earned $88.8 million during its opening weekend in February) and providing a much-needed boost to the theatrical box office. ComScore recently estimated that 2025 domestic box office was down 7% year-over-year, and that’s on top of significant declines from the pre-pandemic era.
Coming to the rescue: Video games, particularly kid-friendly video games, which may soon eclipse superhero comics as the most reliable template for Hollywood blockbusters. “The Super Mario Brothers Movie” was one of the biggest hits of 2023 (behind only “Barbie”), and “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” was a major success over the recent winter holidays.
The Minecraft game, first developed by Marcus “Notch” Persson and acquired by Microsoft in 2014, has a massive audience, with 204 million monthly active users in December. But it also posed particular challenges, since it offers those players a virtual sandbox, rather than a specific story or set of characters to adapt.
Directed by Jared Hess (best known for “Napoleon Dynamite”), with six credited screenwriters, “A Minecraft Movie” meets these challenges by transporting human characters (played by Jason Momoa, Jack Black, and others) to a fantasy world animated in the recognizably blocky Minecraft style. The movie has received mixed reviews — but then, so did “The Super Mario Brothers Movie,” and that proved no obstacle to massive box office success.
“A Minecraft Movie”’s big weekend is also welcome news for Warner Bros., whose film division has endured a string of flops including “The Alto Knights” and “Joker: Folie a Deux.” So it’s probably safe to assume we’ll be seeing a sequel.
Anthony Ha is TechCrunch’s weekend editor. Previously, he worked as a tech reporter at Adweek, a senior editor at VentureBeat, a local government reporter at the Hollister Free Lance, and vice president of content at a VC firm. He lives in New York City.
