In an alternate world – probably a much better world, where we never had a COVID-19 outbreak – today would’ve been the release date for the Minecraft movie. Originally scheduled to launch on March 4, 2022, the film was pushed back over a year ago to make way for The Batman. But while the new superhero flick has landed on schedule, the Minecraft movie never got a new release window.
Mojang announced the original Minecraft film release date in a now-deleted blog post (available thanks to Archive.org) back in 2019. As the devs described the plot, the live-action film would tell “the story of a teenage girl and her unlikely group of adventurers. After the malevolent Ender Dragon sets out on a path of destruction, they must save their beautiful, blocky Overworld.”
In 2020, The Hollywood Reporter revealed the Minecraft movie’s delay alongside a big COVID-19-related shuffle of the Warner Bros. slate. The Matrix: Resurrections and The Batman were part of that shuffle, and have both released on schedule. Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam film was, along with Minecraft, given an indefinite delay at the time, but now has a date set this summer.
In lieu of a proper film, let’s just watch a trailer for Minecraft: Story Mode, shall we?
For more sandbox games that may or may not become movies someday, you can follow that link.