Warner Bros suits confirm A Minecraft Movie will be getting a sequel: 'The ink might not be dry… but imminently'
A Minecraft Movie has proven to be a barnstorming success, thanks in no small part to an all-out marketing blitz focused around the film's winning aesthetic. It's already had the best opening weekend of any videogame adaptation in the US, inspired a viral craze around chicken jockey, and now it seems like the sky's the limit.
Director Jared Hess has already said "it'd be amazing" to make a sequel, but now the Warner Bros suits are on their victory lap and have officially confirmed that there will be Another Minecraft Movie. Asked by Deadline whether sequels for A Minecraft Movie and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice were in development, Warner Bros Pictures co-chairman and CEOs Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy didn't hesitate.
"Imminently," said De Luca. "The ink might not be dry on the deals yet, but imminently."
"Adding to things we’re excited about, Andy Serkis doing the Gollum film, Drew Goddard writing a new Matrix," adds Abdy. "We’re super excited about Amblin developing with Chris Columbus new entries in the Gremlins and Goonies franchises."
So that's pretty unsurprising, but definitive. The executives also arguably deserve their moment in the sun here, because the Minecraft movie has been a long-term project with several false starts: it may well have turned out a big success, but the road here clearly wasn't without twists and turns.
"No matter what version of the story is written, there’s no bad news here," says De Luca. "Everybody did their jobs incredibly well. The project was here for 12 years, and had trouble getting made. I think Pam and I did our jobs well, recognizing that it should be fast tracked. I think Jesse Ehrman is an unsung hero here. That should be hung from the rafters, how he kept this thing alive for those 12 years, through multiple regimes. That is hard to do. He never didn’t believe in it, and he kept the faith. You could not ask for a better performance from a key executive and a champion of his project.
"And then the final puzzle piece was attaching Legendary, where Mary Parent and Cale Boyter brought it home by folding in Jared Hess and producing the result that we have. Everybody did their jobs. There are many things to celebrate, many people to celebrate. Pam and I will always credit everyone who contributes, including a recently reorganized marketing and distribution team. This was their maiden tentpole voyage, wiping out any doubt that we might miss a step in our ability to mount and deploy a global tentpole. There are heroes all through this story, and all of them should get the credit they deserve. It was a complete win for everyone involved."
I'm not sure what deploying a global tentpole means, but presumably it's something to do with those McDonalds meals.
There are no details yet on when to expect the next Minecraft movie, though it will presumably stick to the same crowd-pleasing template and cast that's proven so successful (and feature an extended chicken jockey sequence). The cast and crew will also, presumably, be returning to their own private Minecraft server, where Jack Black got "super weirdly method" and built a fancy mansion.
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