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Good news, everyone! After years of waiting, the A Minecraft Movie release date has finally been confirmed as April 5, 2025.

This date has been a long time coming, as talks of a Minecraft movie began back in 2014. And, back in 2023, there were filming delays due to the SAG-AFTRA strike that was going on at the time. Luckily, it looks like there won't be any more push backs since production wrapped in April 2024. So mark your calendars because 2025 is basically set in stone (or should we say Obsidian).

It's no secret that when the first Minecraft Movie trailer dropped last September, fans were a little worried about the film due to the uncanny valley-ness of the whole thing. However, despite the backlash that followed, star Jack Black and director Jared Hess have confessed that they never saw the negative reaction coming.It's no secret that when the first Minecraft Movie trailer dropped last September, fans were a little worried about the film due to the uncanny valley-ness of the whole thing. However, despite the backlash that followed, star Jack Black and director Jared Hess have confessed that they never saw the negative reaction coming.

After the teaser’s release, viewers had a lot of concerns over the clip, from the cast floating on a CGI background due to unfinished VFX editing, to the animals we know and love from the Minecraft game looking a little too fleshy – and don’t even mention that nightmarish sheep. However, Hess says that he thinks the negative reaction came from a lack of context and viewers perhaps not getting the tone of the movie, just as people didn't 'get' his 2004 flick Napoleon Dynamite at first.

"I think everybody was concerned. But we also knew that there was a lot of stuff in that teaser that was out of context," said the director. "There were so many details out of context, and we learned from it." Hess adds that this spurred the team to release a whole stack of new trailers leading up to A Minecraft Movie’s April release to showcase "the tone of what this movie is and really what the movie is all about."

However, Hess hasn't let this "hiccup," as he calls it, get him down. "We always had confidence in the film that we were making, just because we, you know, we've been testing it, and just the reaction that we had from die-hard Minecraft fans was amazing," added Hess. "Now we're just at this amazing point where being able to share the film with everybody has just been incredible."

What's the craze behind Minecraft?

After Minecraft's 2009 release, it took only two years to reach a million players. Since then, it has sold over 235 million copies across various gaming platforms, cementing its status as a global phenomenon with its blend of creativity, exploration and survival elements.

The game's open-ended design lets players carve out their own experience, whether it's surviving against mobs, mining for resources, farming or using block-based structures to craft artistic masterpieces. It has also fostered a thriving multiplayer community where players collaborate to build their worlds together, while its educational applications extend to coding, architecture and problem solving.

At its core, Minecraft is a limitless digital sandbox, where imagination transforms simple blocks into everything from cozy homes to sprawling cities.

Do video game adaptations really work on the big screen?

The road from console to cinema hasn't always been smooth.

Many video game adaptations have struggled at the box office, but recent hits like the "Sonic" series, "Five Nights at Freddy's" and "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" have proven the genre's potential.

These three films have dominated the box office, with "Super Mario Bros." raking in more than $146 million during its 2023 opening weekend, according to Comscore. The three "Sonic" films have debuted between $58-72 million, while "Five Nights at Freddy's" pulled in more than $80 million.

That's a significant leap from other adaptations like "The Angry Birds Movie 2," which Comscore records show had a lukewarm $10 million opening in 2019. Other attempts such as "Mortal Kombat ($23 million in 2021) and "Resident Evil: Welcome to Racoon City" ($5.3 million that same year) struggled to gain traction.

Black, who has starred in popular films like "School of Rock" and the " Kung Fu Panda " series, said he's never been a part of such a highly-anticipated movie as "Minecraft."