After more than a decade in development, “A Minecraft Movie” has dug deep and struck box office diamonds. Warner Bros. and Legendary Entertainment‘s long-gestating video game adaptation notched a stellar $58 million across Friday and preview screenings from 4,263 North American venues — blasting past “Captain America: Brave New World” ($40.9 million) to land the biggest opening day figure of 2025 so far. In fact, it’s the largest since the record-breaking “Deadpool & Wolverine” launch back in July 2024.
It’s a huge start that puts “A Minecraft Movie” on pace to jockey far ahead of its initial projections, which had forecast a domestic opening weekend of $70 million to $80 million. A three-day debut in the nine-digits is now on the way; the North American market hasn’t seen one of those since “Moana 2” back in November. Some projections have the blocky adventure film going north of $150 million for its opening weekend, which would rank it in the top 30 biggest domestic debuts of all-time. It’ll also probably beat “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” ($146 million) for the biggest three-day opening ever for a video game movie, though there’s the caveat that that animated film technically debuted on a Wednesday and thus had already earned $58 million before moving into its weekend grosses.
Overseas numbers will come tomorrow, but “Minecraft” is a global brand and the film is drawing a big crowd internationally too. It’s even one of the rare recent Hollywood films to be putting up a successful debut in China, ranking first in the country’s box office.
With a $150 million production budget, plus marketing and distribution costs, “A Minecraft Movie” has kicked off strong and put itself in position for true blockbuster success. Reviews lean negative, but as with most IP movies, it’s more important for the film to resonate with fans — moviegoer pollster Cinema Score turned in a B+ grade, indicating some good enthusiasm from ticketbuyers (though a touch below the glowing A-range of some runaway hit fan-driven films). But even besides that, “A Minecraft Movie” will already rank as the second-highest-grossing domestic release of the year just after one weekend of release — and it won’t have trouble soon catching No. 1, “Captain America 4” ($197 million).
Mojang’s “Minecraft” was first released in 2011 and, after being ported across a litany of platforms, ranks as the best-selling video game of all time, aside from “Tetris.” Warner Bros. first started developing a film based on the lo-fi sandbox property in 2014; Legendary came on as a co-producer in 2022 and got this PG-rated version directed by Jared Hess on track for the studio. The film stars Jack Black, Jason Momoa, Danielle Brooks, Emma Myers, Sebastian Eugene Hansen and Jennifer Coolidge.
Speaking of epic, Fathom Events is bowing its second package of episodes for “The Chosen: Last Supper” this weekend, looking to land in third place after earning $2.8 million across Friday and previews. The specialty banner has broken up Season 5 of 5&2 Studios’ Biblical adaptation into three theatrical releases, with Episodes 4-6 coming this frame. Last week’s first round-up of Episodes 1-3 opened to $11 million across three days. The final two episodes will hit theaters next weekend.
Also opening this weekend, Neon has Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk’s feature debut “Hell of a Summer” in 1,255 locations. Not really breaking out, the summer camp slasher earned about $720,000 yesterday; rivals have the indie earning $1.7 million in its opening weekend. Neon acquired the film out of its Toronto Film Festival debut in 2023.
Amazon MGM’s “A Working Man” looks to slide to second after opening on top of the box office last weekend. The Jason Statham vigilante thriller earned $1.9 million on Friday and looks to drop about 53% in its second frame. The Black Bear production is expected to hit a $27.8 million domestic gross in its first 10 days of release. It’s pacing a little behind Statham and MGM’s 2024 conspiracy actioner “The Beekeeper” ($31 million in 10 days), but still a solid turnout for the programmer.
Disney’s “Snow White” is in fourth place after earning $1.5 million on Friday, going down 60% from its daily total one week ago. Now in its third weekend of release, the live-action remake of the company’s original animated classic has faded quickly in theaters after putting up what was already a disappointing debut. Domestic gross now stands at $72 million, and the film is in serious danger of not even hitting $100 million in North America — a disastrous result for a $250 million Hollywood production.
Universal’s “The Woman in the Yard” rounds out the top five, after earning another $1.3 million on Friday. The bleak Blumhouse thriller is projected to fall 54% in its second weekend to add $4.3 million to its haul. Domestic gross should reach $16.5 million through Sunday and, despite what seemed to be rough audience responses, the Jaume Collet-Serra feature is chugging along nicely against a $12 million production budget.
