Didn't you hear? Video game adaptations are good now! Or, if not that, then they're no longer "cursed" to fail on principle.

Thanks to movies like "Detective Pikachu" and HBO's "The Last of Us," it's open season on your favorite gaming properties in Hollywood. Be it "Street Fighter," "Tomb Raider," or "Fallout," studios are snatching up the screen rights to everything from vintage fighting games to modern role-playing sensations. Even titles that proved notoriously resistant to reinterpretations in the past, like "Bioshock," are being resurrected as part of this newfound fad.

The film version of "Minecraft" — Mojang Studios' incredibly popular survival sandbox game — has similarly gone through multiple permutations since Warner Bros. announced the project in 2014. It's not too surprising when you think about it. There's no right or wrong way to play; the game's appeal lies firmly in the freedom to whittle away the hours battling Creepers, amassing hordes of resources, or building houses that literally scrape the sky.

How do you even go about translating a (subtly existential) setup like that into a cinematic narrative? Your guess is as good as mine, but casting everyone's favorite eccentric movie uncle, Jason Momoa isn't a bad way to start.

Minecraft release Date And Where You Can Watch It

As part of a larger release date shuffle, Warner Bros. has officially scheduled "Minecraft" to open in theaters on April 4, 2025. It's a logical slot for the video game movie, which isn't automatically the type of tentpole that would make sense for the summer. Plus, that also gives it some room to breathe away from DreamWorks' live-action "How to Train Your Dragon" remake, which will be targeting the same family demographic when it arrives a few weeks earlier.

No doubt, this move was partly motivated by "The Super Mario Bros. Movie," which opened in theaters almost exactly two years prior to "Minecraft." With Mario, Luigi, and the rest of the Mushroom Kingdom gang projected to enjoy a huge debut over the Easter frame, Warner Bros. is clearly hoping to replicate that success with their own movie based on a decidedly off-beat and colorful video game property.

What Is Minecraft About?

This is a tricky one. Details on "Minecraft" are few and far between at the moment, other than the film is live-action. However, seeing as the original game doesn't actually have a plot, there's not much to extrapolate so far as the movie is concerned.

Will "Minecraft" be an action-comedy that hops between the real world and a virtual setting à la "Free Guy"? Maybe Jason Momoa will be a character who exists within the "Minecraft" universe and teams up with a plucky youngster to ward off Creepers in a far less brutal post-apocalyptic adventure in the vein of "The Last of Us." Or, hear me out, what about a survival thriller that's basically "The Revenant" set in the world of "Minecraft"? I'm just laying golden eggs left and right here, Warner Bros.!

In all seriousness, "Minecraft" would do well to embrace the spirit of the original game by playing up the idea that its characters have the ability to make whatever they want of their existence (be it virtual or otherwise). That's the very concept "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" creator and star Rob McElhenney honed in on back when he was attached to make an animated "Minecraft" movie. "The game gave you that [agency], and I thought that's a really profound experience," as he explained in April 2020.

The Minecraft Cast And Crew

A "Minecraft" movie absolutely calls for a director with an eccentric sensibility to match its source material, and that's precisely what the latest iteration has found in Jared Hess. Whatever the "Napoleon Dynamite" and "Nacho Libre" helmer is planning to do here, it shouldn't be some ho-hum glorified Easter egg hunt. Besides, there's nothing in the way of real mythology to adapt with this IP, so why not have a field day and let your imagination run wild? It worked gangbusters for the "LEGO Movie" franchise, and it might just give Warner Bros. the … wait for it … "block" buster it so desires.

Moving right along; it's unclear who's working on the "Minecraft" script at the moment, although an earlier draft was penned by Allison Schroeder of "Hidden Figures," "Christopher Robin," and "Frozen II" fame. Jason Momoa is the sole actor attached at this juncture, but with development picking up speed, that might not be the case for long. Producers include Mary Parent ("Dune") and Roy Lee ("Godzilla vs. Kong"), with producer Jill Messick slated to receive a posthumous credit for working on the movie prior to her death in 2018.

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