When the first trailer for A Minecraft Movie debuted in September, it’s safe to say that the fan reaction might not have been exactly what Warner Bros. and the creative team were hoping for. It was quickly met with heavy criticism, with fans taking aim at the visual style and more.
It seems, though, that director Jared Hess and producer and Minecraft senior director of original content Torfi Frans Olafsson are taking it in stride – and weren’t totally shocked by the passionate reception. Sitting down recently with IGN to discuss the latest trailer, released today (watch below), they also looked back on the reaction to that first teaser.
“I mean, look, we knew this game represents so many different things to so many different people,” Hess said. “We knew that whatever we led out with, there was going to be strong opinions across the spectrum of what people were expecting, what they wanted it to be. Everybody brings their own special personal connection to the game. So we were ready for everything.”
Hess added that, as marketing continues leading up to the video game adaptation’s April 4, 2025, release, they’ll be able to provide more context to exactly what we’ll be seeing on the big screen.
Olafsson, meanwhile, acknowledged one specific fan criticism: the fact that the film is in live action. In fact, one fan remade the trailer in animation, which was widely well-received by the community.
“I mean, that was one of the things [fans were saying in response to the trailer]: ‘Why is it live action? Why isn't it animated?’ I think a lot of people were expecting that, and just the fact that there was live action and directly real-life characters and physical sets, didn't feel right with them, because in their imagination, they've been playing it for a very long time,” Olafsson said. “And they've kind of projected and seen a bunch of content obviously that's been made both by us, the community, we've made a story mode. We made animated content before, and there's a lot of it out there. But that was also one of the reasons why the filmmakers wanted to go with live action rather than animate it, rather than do something that's been done before.”
“And this movie's been in development for a very, very long time,” he continued. “A lot of the people who will see it were not born when the first contracts and the first discussions were had, and there was always going to be live action.”
Olafsson continued to point to some of the talent on A Minecraft Movie, including studios Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures, Hess, production designer Grant Major, and VFX supervisor Dan Lemmon. “These are, and everybody else on the project, are massive film pros,” he said. “And we felt that this is something we can do… kind of try to explore this wish fulfillment or risk fantasy of what it is like to yourself, be in a physical, tangible, Minecraft universe, a Minecraft world.”
Hess and Olafsson both added that the response they’ve been getting from early test screenings, which include early pre-vis VFX, has been much more positive than the reaction to the trailer. “People are like, ‘This is nothing like the trailer. This movie is awesome,’ “ Olafsson said.
Both creatives were surprisingly candid on the issue, and it’s only Hess’ latest comments on the community in general. In the past, the Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre director has said that he wanted to avoid an “Ugly Sonic” situation with Minecraft, referencing the widely derided original design for the Blue Blur in the first Sonic the Hedgehog movie trailer, leading to a fan backlash and subsequent redesign.
Hess elaborated further in our interview, saying they’ve been keeping up with the early feedback and trying to see how they can include some of what they’re seeing. “But again, I think the biggest thing is context,” he continued. “It's like, in the trailer or the original teaser, you'd see Jason Momoa, ‘Boom!’ using a hammer at the crafting table. It's like, ‘Wait a minute, what's this idea?’ The hammer, it's like, ‘Wait a minute, that's not it.’ But it's the way that you have to kind of dramatize it for live action. It's like, Kevin just hit user inventory screen.
“It's like, that's gameplay and that's amazing, but how do you get the visceral action of crafting something? How do you make that a physical thing that a character can do?” Hess said. “There were all of those kind of details that out of context seemed like total sacrilege, but actually in the context of the movie, work great and honors the game in a new way.”
Showing ‘Vanilla Minecraft’
Outside of that first trailer, though, Hess and Olafsson talked a bit about their approach to the film, especially given Minecraft’s wide-open nature. After all, it’s not like they’re adapting something like The Last of Us or Uncharted, ala, something with more of a fixed story.
That, Hess said, was something they intentionally decided to play with.
“That's the beauty of the game,” he said, “For us, it just felt really fun to take a group of unlikely heroes, underdogs, and throw them into this world and put them on this crazy adventure, and ultimately having them kind of experience as you create in the game, but being able to craft your own destiny. And we just kind of took that concept and ran with it.”
And from the Mojang perspective, Olafsson pointed out a very unique struggle that Minecraft has: there is no one Minecraft experience that everyone points to as their most memorable Minecraft experience. Each person, he said, has their own interpretation based on what mods or resource packs they used, or what servers they played on.
“So we've taken an approach to ground it very firmly in what we all refer to as ‘vanilla Minecraft,’ like the unmodified Minecraft,” Olafsson said. “One of the characters of the movie, the young character, Henry, he enters the world, then is kind of a creator and maker in the real world. And his character then represents the maker or the modder or the builder coming into this world. And as a result, we're going to see some really classic stuff, stuff that we want to see, some Beast Creepers, Endermen and that kind of stuff. And then we're going to see some new stuff that Henry made.”
“I know people may go like, ‘Wait, that's not in the game,’ Olafsson continued. “But anybody who's played Minecraft for a while has usually installed some sort of resource pack or mod, or changed it in some way for themselves. And that's what this character is doing.”
Another challenge, Olafsson said, is crafting the cast in Minecraft, where they didn’t have more established characters like Lara Croft or Mario. What they do have, however, is Steve, with Jack Black playing the famous default character skin.
“He's like an empty page you write your story on,” Olafsson said. “But that was also an opportunity. So casting Jack Black as Steve, maybe you hadn't imagined Jack Black as Steve, but this is the Steve which is Jack Black, if you know what I mean. Because I'm Steve, and you're Steve, and Jared's Steve, and everybody has been Steve, and this one is the Jack Black Steve. For him, we felt that he should have the joy and the curiosity and the fun and the humor that we have seen in the Minecraft community over the years, like through YouTube videos and all of their creations.”
We pressed Hess and Olafsson a little bit more about those cast and characters, with Olafsson saying that Black’s Steve brings the expert’s perspective to the movie. Plus, Hess jokes that Black was “as method as it gets” when it came to immersing himself in the world.
“I mean, he was in his trailer anytime he had a break, he was just slaying it in the Overworld,” Hess said. “Torfi put together a special server just for the crew. Jack got obsessed with searching for lapis lazuli, as he calls it. I mean, every day, it was like, I'd pop in there to go over the scene in the morning and he would be dressed as Steve playing the game. It was kind of a surreal thing to behold.”
They held their cards to their chest, however, when talking about the rest of the cast, including Jason Momoa, Emma Myers, Danielle Brooks, Sebastian Eugene Hansen, and Jennifer Coolidge. But Hess did tease how the real people in the film end up in the Minecraft world, and it’s “something called an Earth Portal, and it was a bridge between our world and the overworld. And so it's a new kind of portal that is in the movie, and it'll blow your mind.”
We’ll just have to wait and see how it all plays out when Minecraft hits theaters next year. In the meantime, stay tuned for the full video interview with Hess and Olafsson, and see our full list of upcoming video game movies and TV shows.
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she's not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
