Brief oral history: How ‘A Minecraft Movie’ rode the chicken jockey to the top of the box office

Minecraft is, perhaps, the ultimate sandbox game. Infinite space, multiple game modes, and seemingly endless updates: The game’s limitless possibilities have helped it sell more than 350 million copies since it launched in 2011 (only Tetris has sold more games, and it had a 27-year lead). In 2014, Microsoft acquired Minecraft developer Mojang for $2.5 billion. That same year, Mojang Studios began trying to figure out how to turn an open-ended game into a narrative film for Warner Bros. By 2022, the adaptation coalesced around Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess, featuring Jason Momoa as Garrett Garrison, a human trapped in-game, and Hess’s Nacho Libre star Jack Black as the game’s default avatar, Steve. Released on April 4, 2025, A Minecraft Movie became the second-highest-grossing film of the year. Kayleen Walters, head of Mojang Studios and VP of franchise development for gaming at Microsoft: We wanted to push the story beyond what players experience in-game and do something specia