Undeterred by the middling reception of Legendary’s Warcraft movie, with Duncan Jones’ live-action rendition of Azeroth going down as another video game adaptation that failed to win over the critics, Warner Bros. has today staked out a release date for its long-in-development Minecraft movie.
It’s now set to march onto the silver screen on May 25, 2019, a release month it currently shares with both Colin Trevorrow’s Star Wars: Episode IX and part two of Joe and Anthony Russo’s Avengers: Infinity War.
Appointing It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia star Rob McElhenney to direct, Warner will be aiming to piggyback on Minecraft‘s groundbreaking success in the video game space. Since its humble launch back in 2009, Markus “Notch” Persson’s sandbox simulator has enjoyed a meteoric rise straight into the pantheon of the industry’s heavyweights, and the fact that the title now sells upwards of 50,000 copies daily – resulting in a cumulative total of 100 million worldwide sales – really cements its status as a bona fide phenomenon.
Success in one medium doesn’t necessarily guarantee a similar fate in another, and one need only look to the spotty track record of video game movies – from Warcraft to Hitman – for evidence of that. Then again, one movie that will be out to buck the trend later this year is Justin Kurzel’s live-action take on Assassin’s Creed. It harbors a metric ton of promise due to the fact that Kurzel et al. are working closely with Ubisoft’s movie studio to ensure that the fidelity of Assassin’s Creed remains intact. Will Warner and McElhenney employ a similar tactic?
Minecraft will now make its cinematic bow on May 25, 2019.