Jason Momoa to star in Minecraft movie helmed by Napoleon Dynamite director

Since the debut of Minecraft over a decade ago (really??), the highly-creative sandbox video game has exploded in popularity. Hollywood naturally took notice and has been trying to develop a Minecraft movie for quite some time. There have been several attempts at getting a Minecraft movie off the ground, and Jason Momoa is the latest actor to attach himself to the project.

Warner Bros. is in final negotiations with Jason Momoa to star in the Minecraft movie. Napoleon Dynamite‘s Jared Hess will direct. Minecraft 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 $2.5 billion.

As I mentioned above, 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, the video game studio behind Minecraft. “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. Will Jason Momoa and Jared Hess have better luck with their Minecraft movie? I sure hope so.

Jason Momoa’s Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom will hit theaters on March 17, 2023.