Minecraft Box Office Should Teach Hollywood Gen Z Wants Its Own Franchises

In an unexpected turn of events, A Minecraft Movie has broken the opening weekend box office record for a video game adaptation, surpassing the mark set by The Super Mario Bros. Movie during the same timeframe two years ago. Ringing in at an estimated $157 million domestically, Minecraft bested Mario‘s $146.3 million outing in April […] The post Minecraft Box Office Should Teach Hollywood Gen Z Wants Its Own Franchises appeared first on Den of Geek.

Apr 7, 2025 - 16:30

Minecraft Box Office Should Teach Hollywood Gen Z Wants Its Own Franchises

In an unexpected turn of events, A Minecraft Movie has broken the opening weekend box office record for a video game adaptation, surpassing the mark set by The Super Mario Bros. Movie during the same timeframe two years ago. Ringing in at an estimated $157 million domestically, Minecraft bested Mario‘s $146.3 million outing in April 2023. Additionally, A Minecraft Movie exceeded even the most lofty expectations, with most outlets estimating its box office returns from this past weekend to score less than $100 million. This begs the question, what does A Minecraft Movie‘s unprecedented success mean for the industry moving forward, and what lessons, right or wrong, will the major studios learn from the event?

The first quarter of 2025 was rough on Hollywood’s box office hopes, to put it lightly. Significant tentpoles, such as Marvel’s Captain America: Brave New World and Disney’s live-action remake of Snow White, flew in well under their expected grosses worldwide. Contrastingly, original titles like Companion, Mickey 17, and Novocaine hardly stood a chance in the marketplace despite positive word of mouth and reviews. March was a month to forget, especially compared to a relatively robust showing a year ago, fueled by great success from Dune: Part Two, Kung Fu Panda 4, and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.

A Minecraft Movie has (temporality, at least) saved the 2025 box office from falling into further disarray. The estimated figure of $157 million is nearly double the previous high benchmark, set by Captain America: Brave New World in February at $88.8 million. The mere concept of a video game movie, a genre that had never seen a $100 million opening weekend before Super Mario in 2023, significantly outgrossing Marvel, the box office’s darlings of the last decade and a half, would’ve been a complex concept to fathom just a few years ago. However, there are some notable reasons for this occurrence.

Younger generations, such as Gen Z and Gen Alpha, desperately yearn for their signature franchise with which to fall in love. Furthermore, studios have been frantically searching for said franchise, with frivolous attempts joining the marketplace every year. Some have been more successful, such as Dune, while others have crashed and burned faster than a chicken under hot lava, like the anemic returns of 2024’s Joker sequel. Warner Bros. was hoping for a new franchise to bloom with Minecraft, and based on the initial results, they appear to have it, thanks in large part to Gen Z and Alpha showing up to the multiplexes in mass.

It’s important to note that the Minecraft video game is incredibly popular with younger people. That description hardly sums up the sheer power the gaming title commands in the industry. In fact, Minecraft is the highest-selling single video game of all time. Since its release in 2011, it has sold more copies than Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, and even Super Mario Bros. Minecraft has additionally been a staple game for kids in Gen Z and Gen Alpha. Available on a multitude of platforms, such as consoles, PCs, and even iPads, Minecraft established itself as a cultural phenomenon years ago. A big screen swing was inevitable.

With that kept in mind, not every cultural phenomenon has translated that success to movie theaters. Look no further than a myriad of poorly received video game adaptations, such as Warcraft (2016), Assassin’s Creed (2016), and Borderlands (2024). Additionally, some seemingly surefire hits have dwindled financially. Disney’s Snow White, a live-action remake of the beloved 1937 classic, felt like the safest bet when announced years ago. However, sliding release dates, alleged controversies surrounding Rachel Zegler (primarily unwarranted), and subpar word-of-mouth torpedoed Snow White‘s chances at success. Most of all, however, it would appear in retrospect that remaking a nearly 90-year-old IP doesn’t actually appeal to kids these days (if it ever did, considering that the Dumbo remake also flopped in pre-COVID times). The landscape is changed; Marvel movies aren’t guaranteed hits anymore, and youthful audiences are tiring of nostalgia aimed as much at their parents or grandparents as themselves.

Younger moviegoers disproportionately make up a large percentage of the box office and always have due to disposable income. And they seem to want something new and fresh, a franchise they haven’t seen before. Not something that their folks have been watching since the ‘80s or ‘90s. The same old, same old hasn’t been cutting it lately, and A Minecraft Movie‘s success is emblematic of the shifting space.

While the film is still an adaptation of a beloved IP, it’s an IP that hasn’t been featured on the big screen before. Conversely, once popular brands, like Indiana Jones, failed to regain their previously significant crowds due to dwindling interest from modern audiences, as seen by the historic bomb that was Dial of Destiny (2023). In that case, it was the fourth sequel to a then 42-year-old movie starring an octogenarian. It turns out that doesn’t appeal to kids anymore than a riff on a fairytale cartoon that played in theaters before the Second World War.

On the other hand, Barbie (2023), a world-renowned property with decades of success behind it, captured lightning successfully in a bottle because of its perfect combination of iconicity and unconventional approach. A Minecraft Movie has done something similar and now holds an opening weekend number just a few million behind Barbie‘s 2023 at-bat.

Another significant driving force behind Minecraft‘s connection with Gen Z is the meme of it all. When the first trailer for the flick dropped, Jack Black’s zany delivery of, “I am Steve” went viral. The subsequent second trailer began with Steve exclaiming, “As a child, I yearned for the mines,” a perennial joke on social media. Finally, younger audiences have turned the theatrical Minecraft experience into an event, cheering for sequences like Jason Mamoa’s boxing match with a chicken jockey as if it were akin to Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire showing up in Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021). The new wave of social media has majorly impacted A Minecraft Movie‘s popularity, similar to the “Gentle Minions” trend from 2023, resulting in a film transcending mediocre reviews from critics and average audiences.

Unlike Barbie, we don’t expect A Minecraft Movie to become a Best Picture-nominated film next winter. Still, with a $300 million-plus haul at the worldwide box office in its opening window, a billion-dollar outing could be in store for Warner Bros. This would also all but guarantee a sequel being greenlit in the near future, meaning Gen Z could have their signature franchise of a beloved IP they grew up with on the horizon. This will also likely prompt even more video game adaptations shortly, and with the continued success of the Sonic films, a Mario sequel on the way, and The Legend of Zelda live-action in pre-production, don’t expect the trend to cease anytime soon.

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