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Warner Bros. And Legendary’s A Minecraft Movie is raking in big numbers at the box office, pre-showing over $7 million on Thursday alone and now on track to collect a weekend of over $75 million. Directed by Jared Hess and starring Jason Momoa, Jack Black, Danielle Brooks, and Jennifer Coolidge, the movie is quickly becoming the blockbuster Hollywood has been eager to behold in anemic 2025.
CinemaCon exhibitors noted a last-minute increase in presales this week. Despite the domestic box office being 11% below year-over-year and economic upheaval fomented by fresh foreign tariffs instituted by now-former President Donald Trump, A Minecraft Movie will be providing the industry with a much-needed win.
The preview surpassed those of all the Sonic the Hedgehog titles—Sonic 1 ($3M), Sonic 2 ($5M), and Sonic 3 ($6.5M)—and other video game family-oriented movies. Though still trailing behind the $10.3M preview for Five Nights at Freddy’s, Minecraft benefits from having a larger and more active fanbase. With more than 300 million copies sold and 140 million monthly players, the Mojang property has a multigenerational audience few video game franchises can match.
Critically, A Minecraft Movie is a humble 51% on Rotten Tomatoes. But this is yet another example of critic-proof IP. Similar to Five Nights at Freddy’s (which was a meager 32% critic score but still drew huge crowds), Minecraft appears bulletproof at the box office. Early word-of-mouth has been positive, with an A- CinemaScore showing good word of mouth entering the weekend.
It’s been a slow year at the box office, with only one weekend so far to crack the $100 million mark—the February opening of Captain America: Brave New World, which opened to $88.8M over three days. With Minecraft opening at the perfect time and drawing big family and gamer audiences, many believe that this could be the film that resuscitates 2025’s box office boom.
If trends hold, Warner Bros. Might just have the year’s biggest non-holiday opening—demonstrating that even a world of pixels can build a box office giant.
