With a global hit box office opening weekend of $550 million, A Minecraft Movie surpassed the biggest opening weekend originally held by The Super Mario Bros. Movie and is now the highest-grossing film of the year. Then, scoring 80$ million in its second weekend. The movie struck theaters on April 4, 2025 in the US and has been a relevant topic in modern media.
“The Minecraft Movie is now the No. 2 highest-grossing video game film of all time,” Darryn Bonthuys reported in an April 14 headline for Gamespot.
However, this success didn’t bloom from coincidence, rather from the legacy Minecraft has left on people of all ages, along with the infamous TikTok trends that are circulating rapidly on ‘for you’ pages, particularly by American and British teenagers.
“Save the drama for the screen,” a poster outside a Cineplex screening states. “Loud or disruptive behavior will result in being asked to leave – and nobody wants to miss the ending.”
This TikTok phenomenon had been heavily centered around the subject of internet memes, especially when actor Jack Black’s character, Steve, exclaims, “Chicken jockey!” This remark has often sent crowds into flurries of enthusiastic cheering, throwing buckets of popcorn at the screen. Other lines that have grown notorious with the trend are “flint and steel,” and “I am Steve.”
On April 16, a group of teenagers at the Eastland Hoyts cinema in Ringwood, Australia, set off a fire extinguisher at the screen. Other incidents included throwing toilet paper, 3D glasses bins, mop signs, and bags of flour in addition to hoisting live chickens in the air.
“For today’s presentation of A Minecraft Movie, please no throwing of popped corn,” Black said to local moviegoers, disguised as a theater spokesperson. “And also no lapis lazuli. And absolutely no… chicken jockeys!”
The movie’s original rating was suspected to be a grab for advertising, with a 46% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an average rating of 4.9/10. The critical response to the movie’s trailer was also generally divided. Released on September 4, 2024, reviews were generally negative toward the CGI, design and live-action style of the film.
The film had reportedly been in development since 2014, and had been dropped by multiple directors over the span of over ten years. The creator of Minecraft, Markus “Notch” Persson, had originally shut down the fan campaign of a film and instead decided to give the opportunity to Warner Bros., who hired director Shawn Levy who left the project with his writers by December. In 2022, Jared Hess, director of ‘Nacho Libre’ and ‘Napoleon Dynamite,’ came to the stand and took the project.
Talks for a potential sequel have already swung into play, and as of April 11, it’s been reported that a second installment is in early development.
