A Minecraft Movie Director Explains Why It’s Live-Action, As New Clip Premieres

A film based on Minecraft has been in various stages of development for more than a decade, but it’s finally happening and now set for release in 2025. The film is live-action, and many wondered why the filmmakers chose to go that route instead of making it animated like The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Torfi Frans Olafsson, the creative director for entertainment at Minecraft studio Mojang, explained the decision to use live-action during Minecraft Live recently.

“We thought a lot about what kind of movie to do, and we chose live-action because it’s not something that’s been seen before on this scale,” Olafsson said.

Director Jared Hess, meanwhile, said, “This is a chance for us, doing a film, to do something different.” Hess mentioned how the dedicated and creative Miencraft fan community already came up with tons of stories and short films based on Minecraft using an animated format.

Hess added: “Being human beings who are actually going into this cubic dimension of the Overworld, and how those characters are engaging in that space. It just seemed like so much fun,” he said.

Although A Minecraft Movie is live-action, fans took it upon themselves to recreate the trailer in animated form–and it looks pretty great. A new clip from A Minecraft Movie has also been released, showing off how Minecraft’s signature feature, crafting, will be represented in the film.

A Minecraft Movie stars Jack Black, Jason Momoa, Emma Myers, Sebastian Eugene Hansen, Kate McKinnon, Danielle Brooks, Jennifer Coolidge, and Jemaine Clement. It releases in theaters on April 4, 2025.