Jared Hess’ Minecraft is leveling up again with new cast members Kate McKinnon (Barbie, The Spy Who Dumped Me, Ghostbusters) and Jermaine Clement (FX’s Legion, What We Do in the Shadows, Flight of the Conchords). In addition to McKinnon and Clement joining the cast, Domain is a co-financier of the feature adaptation of Minecraft.
Kate McKinnon and Jermaine Clement join previously announced cast members Jason Momoa, Jack Black, Danielle Brooks, Emma Myers, Sebastian Eugene Hansen, and Jennifer Coolidge. Cameras will roll in New Zealand, though the plot remains a mystery. The Minecraft movie is based on the hugely successful video game franchise, which allows players to explore a blocky, procedurally generated 3D world. They can mine and extract raw materials to craft tools and build anything their imagination can conjure up. A few short years after it launched, Microsoft acquired Mojang Studios, the video game company behind Minecraft, for a swift $2.5 billion.
The studio has been trying to develop a Minecraft movie for many years. Shawn Levy (The Adam Project) was once slated to direct the film but departed after creative differences with Mojang. “What happened simply is, Warners asked me to develop kind of how might this ever be a story for a movie, because it’s not a narrative game,” Levy told the Wall Street Journal in 2014. “We came up with an approach that felt good to us and I discussed it with Mojang, the game makers who make Minecraft, and they were like, ‘that doesn’t sound like what we want if we’re gonna see a movie get made. We don’t know what we want, but that doesn’t feel right.’ And I said ‘Okay, well that feels like that’s a movie I can envision.’” It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia star Rob McElhenney stepped in to replace him and talked with Steve Carrell to star, but wound up departing himself. Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist director Peter Sollett then took the reins, but when Warner Bros. removed the film from their schedule due to the pandemic, Sollett left as well.
In other words, Minecraft has traveled a rocky road to reach a point where big-name stars are joining the long-gestating adaptation. The project finally feels real, and with cameras heating up to capture the action, we should hear more soon.
Are you excited about the Minecraft movie after the success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie and the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise? Let us know in the comments below.