The China Mail - Digging for box office gold, 'A Minecraft Movie' hits cinemas

Critics have been given limited access to the film ahead of the start of its theatrical release on Wednesday, with those present at Sunday's world premiere in London asked to hold back their write-ups.

Made by "Napoleon Dynamite" director Jared Hess, the film stars Jack Black -- who also appeared in Super Mario -- alongside Jason Momoa, Emma Myers, Jennifer Coolidge, Jermaine Clement and Matt Berry.

At the London premiere, Black cast the film as escapism for families in an increasingly worrying world.

"There's so much violence and war and hatred," Black told The Hollywood Reporter. "And that's what I love about this movie -- there's a lot of love in it and there's a lot of creativity."

A trailer released late last year drew largely negative comments while a handful of online reviews have been varied.

One described it as "easily the worst movie I have seen in years", yet another tipped it to become a "cult classic".

Part of the challenge for backers Warner Studios is that adapting the world's most successful game -- around 300 million sales and counting -- is set to provoke strong feelings from fans who grew up exploring the Minecraft universe.

For every Super Mario Bros success story -- the 2023 adaptation of the Nintendo racers grossed an estimated $1.3 billion in 2023 -- there are other games-turned-films that have turned into epic box office turkeys.

- Games to big screens -

Minecraft was first released 16 years ago, developed by Swedish designer Markus Persson, who sold it for $2.5 billion to Microsoft several years later.

Players explore and build while fending off creepers and zombies, all in a world of simple cubic lo-fi graphics.

The film's plot sees four humans sucked into the game through a mysterious portal who must then try to find their way home with the help of the Minecraft character Steve, played by Black.

Warner spent an estimated $150 million on the film and experts say cinemas need a box office hit after a slow start to 2025.

Disney's big-budget Snow White adaptation, released last month, has been widely panned and there are still more than six weeks to go until the release of the next instalment of the bankable "Mission: Impossible" franchise.

"We hope it's going to be big thing for cinemas because the market is a bit quiet at the moment," Eric Marti, director at box office consultancy Comscore, told AFP.

He stressed that Minecraft, unlike Super Mario, had not crossed generations in the same way as the Nintendo characters which first emerged in the 1980s.

"Minecraft doesn't necessarily have the same ability to become universal," he explained.

Transferring gaming success to the big screen is a tricky balancing act, involving careful plotting.

"Some adaptations of video games to the cinema have been total failures like 'Street Fighter' or 'Mortal Kombat'," explained Julien Pillot, a French expert on digital culture. "Others have had commercial success despite not being particularly appreciated by gamers."

A first live-action take on Super Mario Bros in 1993 appears on some "worst of all time" film lists, while the 2005 movie version of "Doom" -- a franchise which revolutionised the shoot-'em-up genre in the 1990s -- remains another memorable flop.

Studios are keen on adaptations because games are like classic comic books, which have long been plundered: rich in characters, with an established following and a widely recognised visual universe.

There have been recent successes on the small screen, including Netflix hits "The Witcher" in 2019 and "Arcane" in 2021.

HBO's "The Last of Us", a thriller set in post-apocalyptic America, was a breakout success in 2023 and a new season is set to be released in April.

A sequel in the Mortal Kombat franchise is set to be released in cinemas in October, while "Five Nights at Freddy's 2", based on a popular horror game, will hit screens in December.

P.Deng--ThChM