User:Strugglehouse/sandbox/Minecraft (movie)

Minecraft is an upcoming live action movie based on the 2011 video game of the same name. The movie is set to be released on 4 April 2025, directed by Jared Hess and staring Jason Momoa.

History
In 2012, Mojang, the developers of Minecraft received offers from Hollywood producers who wanted to create Minecraft-related TV shows. Mojang, however, stated that they would only engage in such projects when "the right idea comes along."

Two years later, in February 2014, an attempt to crowdfund a fan film via Kickstarter was shut down after Markus Persson, the original creator of the Minecraft video game, declined to give the the filmmakers a license, stating that the Kickstarter was set up before any agreement with Mojang had been made. Later the same month, Persson revealed that Mojang was in talks with Warner Bros. Pictures regarding an official Minecraft film, which would be produced by Roy Lee and Jill Messick. The movie was "in its early days of development" by October of that year. The film was initially going to be directed by Shawn Levy and written by Kieran Mulroney and Michele Mulroney, but they all dropped out in December.

In July 2015, Warner Bros. hired Rob McElhenney to direct the film. According to McElhenney, he had been drawn to the film based on the open-world nature of the game, an idea Warner Bros. had initially agreed with and provided him with a preliminary US$150 million budget for. In 2016, early production started on the film; they giving a release date of 24 May 2019 in June, Jason Fuchs was announced as scriptwriter in October, and Steve Carell was contracted to star in November. McElhenney's Minecraft film "slowly died on the vine," and due to scheduling conflicts, he left the film in August 2018, and Fuchs was replaced with Aaron and Adam Nee, resulting in a delayed release date.

In January 2019, Peter Sollett was announced to write and direct the film, featuring an entirely different story from McElhenney's version. In June 2019, Allison Schroeder was hired to write the script and co-write the film with Sollett. The film was scheduled to be released in theaters on 4 March 2022. However, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Warner Bros. removed the film from their release schedule in October 2020. Sollett instead directed Metal Lords, which was released exclusively on Netflix in April 2022. That same month, production on the Minecraft film was announced to be moving forward without Sollett and Schroeder, now with Jared Hess set to direct and Jason Momoa in early talks to star. The film was also confirmed to be live action. Some sources also said that Chris Bowman and Hubbel Palmer would rewrite the script. In early April 2023, it was reported that the film would release on 4 April 2025. 