It is worth noting that it took so long for the Minecraft movie to arrive at the cinemas. Swedish gaming company Mojang Studios unlocks block-building games for the first time around the world, unlocking more than a decade since it sold to Microsoft for $2.5 billion (£1.9 billion). Last year, the game had 170 million active players each month. There are more people than people living in Russia.
Minecraft is a seemingly simple game with no goals set. Players can mine blocks from the game’s theoretically infinite world and use those blocks to build what they need. In the basic “survival mode”, players must keep their characters alive by seizing hunger and fighting monsters, but there is also a “creative mode” that allows for more elaborate and uninterested buildings.
Markus Persson, commonly known as Notch, created Minecraft in 2009 and previously worked on King’s browser games. The name comes from a user’s suggestion during the alpha testing phase. Meanwhile, the game had already received a ton of reviews.
Reviewers said the game was very special, and the popular webcomic Penny Arcade ran a series of strips on how addictive Minecraft is. In the world of video games nerds, everyone started talking about Minecraft and was on sale just a month after they entered the beta stage. Before it was fully released in 2011, 16 million registered users and 5,000 people attended the first Minecon event. It was held by MarkTch to pull the lever and release the game. The success of Minecraft’s pre-release helped to popularize the idea of early access for games used to promote sales.
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Minecraft’s simplicity, coupled with its creativity capabilities, has been able to blend perfectly with the growing influence of YouTube, social media, and the “creator economy.” By May 2012 – Just six months after the game’s full release, YouTube had over 4 million Minecraft videos. If you were part of the online gaming community at the time, Minecraft was simply inevitable.
Minecraft’s resilience also allowed the institution to take part in the conflict. It helped Minecraft have a clear educational application, teach creative skills, and provide the opportunity to experiment with accessible computer design programs. British institutions such as the British Museum and Great Ormond Street Hospital have been recreated in Minecraft over the past decade.
This has become the rarest in the video game world. This is something that is truly loved by gamers of all ages and is considered healthy and useful by people outside of the community. In that sense, it certainly has earned its place on a worthy list of the best video games ever made.
Naturally, Hollywood called quite early in this rise. Notch revealed in 2014 that he was working with Warner Bros. to help develop a film based in the gaming world. Sean Levy signed on to director, but he was soon replaced by actor and football club owner Rob McElhenney. This version of the film cancelled its release date in 2019 and began production in early stages, but the project disappeared amidst executive reforms in the studio.
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The Covid-19 pandemic has also delayed work on Minecraft films and launched a relocated 2022 release date. The exact thing that made Minecraft a success as a game – a blank slate for its sandbox concept and creativity – made it difficult to transform into a movie. In a world without plots, how do you create a story worthy of a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster?
Until April 2022, the current version of the film directed by Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess has launched. Hess was invited to pitch Minecraft after another project that broke down the studio. As he explained to the Salt Lake Tribune, “It’s about to adapt something that doesn’t have a story. It’s an open sandbox game. …I like the challenge. I need fun, ridiculous movies here.
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This is as close to as certain as possible at the box office. Some estimates point to a potential weekend of $80 million (£61 million) in the US alone, particularly on the back of decent topics.
Ultimately, it seems hard to imagine that a Minecraft film could be anything but a huge success. And all of that came to work over a decade ago, creating an incredibly simple, but very addictive video game that was revolutionary. The only surprise is that it took Hollywood to catch up with the waves of Minecraft. After all, the building blocks were always there.
Minecraft movies will be in theaters in the UK starting April 4th.
