Will “A Minecraft Movie” level up at the box office?

Warner Bros. and Legendary’s cinematic take on the beloved video game is targeting $70 million to $80 million in its domestic opening weekend. Based on surging advanced ticket sales, rivals and independent tracking services believe the final number could be closer to $90 million, while Warner Bros. is offering a softer $65 million figure. “A Minecraft Movie” should add another $65 million-plus at the international box office for a grand total of $135 million to $150 million globally to start. The film cost $150 million to produce and plenty more to market.

Thanks to pent-up demand, multigenerational appeal and goodwill toward the choose-your-own-adventure property, however, “A Minecraft Movie” looks like it’ll be a commercial winner for Warner Bros. and movie theaters. Although it’s based on one of the best-selling video games in history, that kind of association doesn’t always guarantee success in Hollywood. (Just ask the backers of last year’s “Borderlands.”) However, “Minecraft” seems like it’ll avoid the fate of the litany of failed video game adaptations and find itself closer to the company of Paramount’s “Sonic the Hedgehog” and Tom Holland’s “Uncharted.” It would need several lives in theaters to near the box heights of Universal’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which is the highest-grossing video game adaptation in history with $1.3 billion — not that “Minecraft” needs to hit the billion-dollar mark to be considered a triumph.

Cinema operators are desperate for a surge in attendance. Overall box office revenues continue to lag with ticket sales currently 10.9% behind 2024 and 39% behind 2019, according to Comscore. Warner Bros. needs the victory as well after two back-to-back theatrical misfires in Robert De Niro’s “The Alto Knights” and Bong Joon Ho and Robert Pattinson’s “Mickey 17.”

“Our advanced sales have been impressive, and this will surely be an amazing spring break for families in your theaters,” Warner Bros. global distribution chief Jeff Goldstein said on Wednesday night at CinemaCon, the annual convention for movie theater owners.

Jared Hess (“Napoleon Dynamite,” “Nacho Libre”) directed “A Minecraft Movie,” which stars Jason Momoa, Jack Black and Danielle Brooks and cost $150 million to produce. The story follows a group of misfits who are pulled through a portal into a cubic world and guided by an expert crafter named Steve (Black). Reviews have been mixed, though exhibitors believe “A Minecraft Movie” won’t live or die by critical reception.

Variety’s chief film critic Owen Gleiberman praised the performance of Black (“no one can ever say that he phones it in”) as well as the director’s take on the story. “Hess brings something likable to ‘A Minecraft Movie,’” Gleiberman wrote in his review. “He’s a genial camp satirist who knows how to invest not taking anything seriously with a flaked-out conviction. ‘A Minecraft Movie’ never stops goofing on itself, and that’s appealing.”