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Minecraft Movie To Compete With Avengers and Star Wars In 2019 (polygon.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Warner Bros. announced today that it will be releasing its upcoming Minecraft movie on May 25, 2019, if all things go according to plan. It will be competing directly with Lucasfilm's Star Wars: Episode IX film, which will be released the same weekend, only a few weeks after Marvel's Infinity War film. The Minecraft movie has already faced some problems. The film's original director, Shawn Levy, left the project in 2014 after his Goonies-inspired movie idea was rejected by Warner Bros. executives. Mojang announced a new director for the movie last July -- Rob McElhenney, star of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The movie is likely to be a hit at the box office as the game has a massive following. Earlier this month, Mojang announced the game passed 100 million sales across all platforms, including PC, Mac, consoles and mobile.
WTF? how are they competing, that is like saying a new ford mustang is competing with a new scooter just because they are releasing around the same time.
If anything, movies about really popular game franchises are generally the ones that bomb the hardest, given those kind of games are centered on their gameplay rather than story, which puts the director, writer etc.. in a really bad pickle, and we end with things like Super mario the movie.
How many good movies can you name that were styled after a game? A few (and a metric ton of crappy ones).
How many good movies can you name that were styled after a sandbox game? Umm... erh ... well...
Folks, movies and games are different media. For good reasons. Have you ever watched someone play Minecraft (for other reasons than to learn how to do something new in Minecraft)? That's even more boring than watching someone fish.
For the same reasons I don't get "e-sports" by the way. Playing a shooter is fun. But why the fuck would I want to watch someone do it?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
you can find previews on youtube. It's just some guy playing minecraft, and just talking. The person just needs to be a few years older than the target teenage audience to have to right level of language cool factor. ... or ...
the alternative movie is a legos movie, substituting lego blocks with minecraft blockiness.
Especially cool would be combining lego blocks morphed to minecraft blockiness and some-guy-talking. This is sure to be an instant hit, and a worthy competitor to Star Wars.
It's a blocky road ahead.
Eat the rich.
During the first 30 minutes of the movie they'll be showing JRE installation to run the second part of the movie.
Would be nice to see T, L, Square and Bar on the big screen. Then they can release the 3D sequel blockout
Unfortunately there are rumors that a rival film is headed towards a competing release the same summer: Pizza: The Movie. Both projects may be delayed because of impending cross litigation over rights to the original concept. This may help green light the dark horse project that seemed to be going nowhere: The Grilled Cheese Saga. It's complete lack of mozzarella may turn out to be it's saving grace. Given that cheddar is the second most consumed cheese in the US, Grilled Cheese Saga with it's multi-cheese fan appeal could satisfy the market for cheese themed blockbuster entertainment.
Why is Snark Required?
What do all three of those movies have in common? Merchandise that goes along with the film.
"Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the movie is made. Spaceballs-the T-shirt, Spaceballs-the Coloring Book, Spaceballs-the Lunch box, Spaceballs-the Breakfast Cereal, Spaceballs-the Flame Thrower."
We'll make great pets
So are they going to film it at 320x200, then blow it up on the big screen?
Whenever a video game or tv show is turned into a movie it is a reliable and clear indication that the game or show has jumped the shark.
This is a sad statement about the Hollywood. Yes, they probably will get a boatload of people to show up just because they love to play Minecraft and want to extend that experience to the big screen. Yup, that'll probably mean a lot of money. But that doesn't mean that making a movie about a thinly-premised video game - no matter how playable and engaging - is necessarily a good idea. The long, sad history of video-game adaptations suggests we will merely end up with a steaming pile of crap with a nonsensical plot, that simply happens to have "Minecraft" stamped on it. Millions of parents will be extorted out of tens of millions of otherwise useful dollars to take their kids to it. Will someone please think of the parents!
How many good movies can you name that were styled after a game?
The only one I can think of that was even halfway decent was Clue. Otherwise I'm drawing a blank. I can think of a few decent games that were styled after a movie but pretty much nothing the other way around. In fact a video game (or tv show) being turned into a movie seems to be a reliable indicate that that property has jumped the shark.
For the same reasons I don't get "e-sports" by the way. Playing a shooter is fun. But why the fuck would I want to watch someone do it?
Same reason you would want to watch an NBA or NFL or Premier League game. You find it entertaining. Different people are entertained by different things. Personally I agree with you and I find e-sports completely uninteresting as a spectator. But there are other sports I do find entertaining to watch. Just my own preferences. Some people obviously enjoy watching e-sports and there's nothing wrong with that. I don't get it but I don't really have to. Just harmless entertainment.
100 million? I would have guessed a much bigger number. I guess it is just because I have kids right in their target demographic. There are loads of youtube channels with millions of subscribers that feature guys playing minecraft and narrating as they play the game. Seriously, these minecraft youtube shows have much bigger audiences than MSNBC - yet you've heard of the people on MSNBC.
Every elementary school kid knows minecraft. They have it on their Xbox, mom's phone, tablet... boys and girls pretty well equally. They love minecraft. And the biggest youtube minecraft channel is from Europe, so it has to be big over there too. I guess they haven't hit big in Asia yet. I suppose that's a good thing for Mojang... It has been a big deal for long enough that I assumed it was ready to jump the shark.
Minecraft is still one of the most-played PC games.
Happy Days was still one of the most watched shows on TV when Fonzie literally jumped the shark with the show that eventually coined the phrase. Plenty of media properties have jumped the shark while still popular. It doesn't mark the end but it usually marks the beginning of the end or at least a slow decline.
Wreck It Ralph was not a movie designed from a game. It referenced various games and it was based on a fictional game but there was no Wreck It Ralph game in the real world that existed prior to the movie. QED it doesn't count for purposes of this discussion.
I was (am?) always a big Lego Technic fan. Although I've not bought any this side of the year 2000.
I've had Minecraft PE on my phone/tablet, which I mostly play in creative mode (the controls are awful for reacting and moving quickly) every now and again, when bored.
However a couple of weeks ago I decided to jump in and get the "Real thing"; buying the java client for laptop/desktop.
It's fun, but I was shocked at how bad the server eco-system is: There is 1) The official server, which I use, but I am very worried about making it accessible from the internet. I'd feel like I'm putting a rabbit on the motorway, and hoping it doesn't get run over. Then there is 2) Bukkit, which tries to add features that make running an internet accessible server more feasible; but the project has been killed. (Majong hired some key developers and then shut the original down); next I found 3) Spiget, that is a clone for (2) the one of the community keeps alive. Finally 4) you can "rent" a "realm" from majong, basically paying them a monthly fee to run a server for you.
All these servers appear to become daemons by running a jre in GNU Screen! With various scripts that execute commands to the "server" via screen cli echos. Other functionality works by just copying key files around. I guess such Rube Goldberg server setups matches the in-game way of doing things
And I though Banking application web servers were terribly put together...
I had thought that after so many years, and money that the server side things would be rock-solid, and these days it would just about adding new things to play with in the world.
I'd expected a something near to a proper DB for the world data, with methods like transactions to prevent corruption; audit records that let you roll the state of a particular area or thing back to some previous state. Or the ability for users to claim (or be assigned) an area, that only they can break, but others can visit. Maybe a set of reasonable tools and features to identify and deal with misbehaving users, either via their own in world action, or via "modded" clients.
If you think I am being paranoid, search for "minecraft griefing", e.g. on youtube.
Despite all that I would still consider making my server internet accessible, probably only to people I know IRL. (Not to say my server is something special, that would be of any interest to anyone. Its of interest to just me, because its "my world")
You sure taste good Boss!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
It could work, look at the LEGO Movie. Similarly, Minecraft has no narrative, so they have quite a bit of creative liberty. If they do it well, it could be pretty entertaining.
Never start vast projects with half-vast ideas.
I hope they do a better job casting John Steed this time. But I imagine it's hard to live up to Patrick Macnees's iconic portrayal...
#DeleteChrome
And spent $300 million at least on marketing alone.
There is a version of Minecraft called Story Mode, and from what I've seen of my son playing it, it seems in the vein of Indiana Jones.
And it has a story.
The original director dropped out because he wanted to do a Goonies style story. That would have probably worked, especially if it was targeted at younger children through early teens (the ones playing Minecraft Story Mode).
Spoiler Alert for Lego Movie:
Shoot, Lego made a fantastic film about Krazy Glue.
BlameBillCosby.com
The trick will be not to spend $800 million making and promoting it...
We can only hope the film is as exciting as watching my nephew spend 12 hours building a gigantic castle, filling it with goats, then burning it to the ground.
Having the creator of "It's always Sunny in Philadelphia" direct what ostensibly would be a kid's movie will probably result in a good movie.
Good thing my kids already know what a crack pipe is.
(And if you want to see how bad a public server can get without any kind of protection or moderation, just look up "2B2T")
last time I was there i was being hunted by the other players and had to spend a half hour hiding in a giant swastika shaped castle someone built in the sky I then had to walk for over a hundred thousand of bocks just to get far far away from other players and find any terrain totally barren of useful resource because the denizens of that server have a scored earth policy.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.