The popular video game Minecraft from Microsoft/Mojang is finally getting a movie adaptation after years of development. We’ve known that Jason Momoa was eyeing it as his next franchise, and will star in it accordingly. And today we also found out that none other than Jack Black will co-star in the live-action adaptation of a video game featuring block-shaped, cartoon-esque characters.
According to Deadline, Black—whose previous credits include Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (pictured above), School of Rock, and King Kong—will be joining the film in an undisclosed role. And while we don’t know anything about who or what he’ll be playing in the film, Black’s credits, which also include voicing Bowser in 2023’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie and the titular panda in the Kung Fu Panda animated films, set him up to be an entertaining addition to what will presumably be a meta take on the video game, where over 140 million players each month create their own worlds.
Not much is known about the adaptation, other than that it is, apparently, still happening, and that Momoa and now Black are attached, with Emma Myers, Danielle Brooks, and Sebastian Eugene Hansen also cast in the film. The project has been in development limbo for years, and comes from Warner Bros. with additional financing from Legendary, Vertigo, and Momoa’s company, On the Roam.
Deadline also states that writing credit for the script “is still being determined,” which doesn’t bode well to me for what the cohesiveness of the final story will be. I hope to be proven wrong, however! If there’s a film that could become greater than the sum of many disparate (presumably block-shaped) parts, then Minecraft is that movie.
Minecraft currently has a release date of April 4, 2025.
