A Minecraft Movie is doing big numbers at the box office and could end up being one of the year’s biggest movies. Director Jared Hess, who made a name for himself with the sleeper indie hit Napoleon Dynamite 20 years ago, was already a fan of the game when he signed on to direct. However, nothing could prepare him for taking on such a massive franchise and the hate fans gave that first teaser.
Speaking to Deadline about all things Minecraft–and where the Napoleon Dynamite statue ended up–Hess said the teaser’s release was the hardest part of the process, and something he felt like he had to recover from.
“It did not provide a lot of context, and there was so much unfinished visual effects shots that we were still right in the middle of working on and a number of things. We definitely had to spend a lot of time recovering from that experience,” he said. “But we all stayed the course. You can’t go down the rabbit hole of every comment on Reddit and trying to let comments direct the look of anything.”
He knew the film would work, but it took the teaser to hit and for the marketing to get in gear for fans to see the movie as Hess saw it.
“The great thing is we’ve been testing it, so we knew what was working and that was all we were armed with. Once we started putting out things that really truly reflected what the tone of the film was in the marketing, everything changed. And then it was just like, here we go.”
A Minecraft Movie had a huge opening weekend, surpassing even juggernauts like Barbie and The Dark Knight. The film ended up shattering expectations and nabbed $163 million in the US for its opening weekend and a worldwide total, as of now, with $323 million worldwide. A Minecraft Movie is now the biggest opening weekend of all time for a video game movie, outpacing even The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
