Movies

A Minecraft Movie unearths record-shattering opening weekend as 2025 box office comes alive

BBG News

And then, suddenly, it rained.

Following three months of disappointing ticket sales at home, the domestic box office experienced an unexpected surge in revenue, which was almost unforeseen. The release of A Minecraft Movie, initially predicted to earn $55 million during its first three-day opening weekend, came as a pleasant surprise given its troubled past. The initial trailer for this movie received widespread criticism and garnered over a million dislikes on YouTube. At the beginning of 2025, Jared Hess’ latest directorial venture seemed poised to join the list of biggest box office flops that year.

The pace at which things can transform within a week was evident with the unexpected success of “A Minecraft Movie”. Box office analyst Shawn Robbins pointed out that the film’s advance ticket sales skyrocketed in its final seven days before release, according to tracking service Quorum. Remarkably, awareness for “A Minecraft Movie” doubled during this period, indicating a highly effective final week of pre-release marketing. The extraordinary surge in interest preceded an opening weekend that far outstripped expectations, grossing an astounding $157 million. This figure broke the record for the biggest non-Marvel domestic opening weekend in April, surpassing “Furious 7’s” $147 million debut, a record that had stood for ten years. It was “A Minecraft Movie”, not “Furious 7” or its “chicken jockey”, that managed to top James Wan’s film in this regard.

In a remarkable turn of events, Minecraft surpassed the $146.4 million three-day box office earnings of The Super Mario Bros. Movie (which had an early release on Wednesday and saw demand dwindle) to establish itself as the biggest launch for a video game movie in history. This triumph is well-deserved considering Minecraft is based on the best-selling video game of all time. Additionally, this success further solidifies Jack Black’s status as a leading man in family-friendly films over the past decade. After only three days, it trails slightly behind King Kong’s domestic earnings of $218.08 million.

In just three short days, director Jared Hess has achieved a massive domestic milestone with this movie, surpassing all his previous domestic earnings except for Nacho Libre’s $80.19 million. Interestingly enough, Minecraft’s opening day revenue alone outshone everything else in Jared Hess’s portfolio. Warner Bros., who have been struggling to find success lately, are particularly thrilled about this development. In fact, the last big hit for Warner Bros. was Beetlejuice Beetlejuice a year ago. However, with A Minecraft Movie, they now have a blockbuster hit on their hands. The reason for its success lies in its appeal to an audience that has been underserved in 2025 cinema: children and teenagers. After a long line of R-rated action films, it’s refreshing to see a PG comedy that younger audiences can enjoy without adult supervision.

In 1990, unexpectedly and even in the spring season, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles emerged as one of the year’s top-grossing films. Interestingly, five years prior, The Care Bears Movie outperformed movies now considered classics like To Live and Die in L.A., Clue, and After Hours. When a major film is based on characters and a world popular among today’s children, massive box office success often ensues. While A Minecraft Movie benefited from contemporary marketing techniques such as virality on TikTok, its success mirrors that of the Turtles and Care Bears from years ago. The Hollywood scene in the 2020s has been focused on milking the last bit of box office potential from Kevin Costner and Mark Wahlberg’s “star power,” which seems to have alienated younger moviegoers, a crucial demographic for a thriving box office ecosystem. Let’s hope that A Minecraft Movie sparks more films appealing to the youth, and not just poor imitations like Robolox: The Movie starring Adam Sandler.

Lastly, regarding Minecraft, this film marks the definitive arrival of video game movies. Now that the industry is producing films based on the most renowned video games ever (instead of Prince of Persia) and catering to younger audiences, the subgenre has truly taken flight. In the past five years, titles like Sonic the Hedgehog, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Five Nights at Freddy’s, and even Uncharted have all experienced remarkable success. It’s hard to imagine that future generations will remember a time when the idea of video game movies being box office failures was widespread. With additional Freddy’s, Mario, and Zelda installments in development, it seems like the video game movie genre is only getting started.

It’s evident that The Working Man won’t be as agile compared to The Beekeeper, given it dropped 53% this week, earning $7.27 million. Considering the circumstances, this decrease in its second weekend isn’t too concerning, and with a total of $27.8 million after only ten days, it seems unlikely that those funding the film have any complaints. In comparison, The Chosen: Last Supper — Part 2 didn’t perform as strongly as its previous version last weekend, but it still managed to rake in a solid $6.7 million from 2,296 theaters. However, it’s not maintaining its momentum as well as The Working Man this week. Conversely, Snow White saw another concerning drop of 58% this weekend, earning an additional $.608 million. With a domestic total of $77.46 million after 17 days, it’s now highly unlikely that this film will reach the $100+ million mark domestically.

Over the weekend, the movie titled “The Woman in the Yard” decreased by approximately 52%, earning an additional $4.5 million, bringing its domestic total to $16.66 million. In its second week, “Death of a Unicorn” dropped by around 53% and added $2.69 million to its domestic total, now standing at $10.78 million. The movie “The Chosen: Last Supper — Part 1” is still in circulation, but it fell by 84% as a follow-up was released. Despite this significant drop, it managed to earn another $1.86 million, making it the highest-grossing non-“Coraline” movie from Fathom Events to date. Neon has been enjoying a successful streak, but even they aren’t immune to occasional missteps. Their new wide release title “Hell of a Summer” had a moderate opening of $1.75 million. With average reviews, limited marketing efforts, an oversaturated horror movie market, it seems that the box office performance of “Summer” was largely determined by these factors.

Initially, Sony Classics didn’t sink “The Penguin Lessons” over the weekend, and now Bleecker Street has managed a decent wide release launch for a new movie. I’m as pleased as Bart and Lisa when Homer was right about that comet dissipating in the atmosphere! “The Friend” didn’t explode during its wide release expansion, but it did earn a respectable $1.61 million from 1,237 cinemas, averaging $1,308 per theater. Its domestic total now stands at $1.69 million. “Captain America: Brave New World” dropped by 52% this week, earning another $1.39 million and a domestic total of $199.12 million. It’s expected to surpass $200 million domestically next weekend. Interestingly, “A Minecraft Movie” might reach that mark before “Brave New World”!

1. Over the weekend, the film titled Black Bag dropped by 57%, losing 1,254 theaters in the process. It managed to make another $950,000, bringing its total earnings to $20.65 million, making it the fourth Focus Features title in a row to exceed $20 million domestically. On the other hand, Princess Mononoke lost most of its IMAX screens this weekend but was also shown in general cinemas by GKIDS. Playing across 630 locations, it earned $617,342, pushing its domestic total to $16.87 million from multiple re-releases. Unfortunately, The Penguin Lessons, which had a strong opening last weekend, experienced a concerning drop of 66% this week, earning another $400,000 and bringing its 10-day domestic total to $2.21 million.

Title expansions and box office earnings for several films:

1. “The Ballad of Wallis Island” was initially shown in 41 theaters, earning a total of $200,000, which averaged approximately $878 per theater. Currently, it has grossed a total of $323,000 after being released for ten days.

2. Upon its opening, “A Nice Indian Boy” was displayed in 81 theaters and made $176,000, resulting in an average of around $21,73 per theater.

3. “The Encampments” expanded to 46 locations, accumulating $110,477 for a theater average of about $2,402 and a ten-day total of $221,060.

4. This week, “Gazer” earned $13,900 from a single theater, while “When Fall is Coming” debuted with $6,000 also at one theater location.

In contrast to the relatively low earnings during March 2025’s movie releases, April 2025 started off as a massive hit, generating an enormous $190 million across all cinemas. This makes it the fifth-largest domestic April weekend in history. Remarkably, this figure surpasses the total earnings of the last three weeks of 2025’s domestic box office combined. To put it into perspective, April 2025’s single frame is nearly half of March 2025’s overall $397.46 million domestic revenue. This strong performance has silenced concerns about the decline or even death of traditional movie theater going (a topic that was hotly debated at CinemaCon this week). Despite Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos’ claims, it appears that people are eager to return to cinemas when there is something captivating on screen.

To be completely honest, what’s most thrilling is that the coming weeks don’t seem to resemble last March of 2022, where “The Batman” dominated three consecutive weekends without any other films making substantial earnings. Instead, we have “Sinners” slated for April 18-20, 2025, and both “The Accountant 2” and the re-issue of “Revenge of the Sith” are performing well for the month’s end. Looking ahead, April 2025 appears incredibly promising, leading straight into summer 2025, which is brimming with movies targeting the young audiences who flocked to see films like “Wicked”, “Barbie”, “Inside Out 2”, and “A Minecraft Movie”.

April 2025’s opening weekend is remarkably similar to the strong finish of November/December 2024, with Wicked, Moana 2, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, and Mufasa: The Lion King driving this momentum. However, it seems strange that there was a three-month gap filled with R-rated films that audiences didn’t seem to care for. To keep cinemas thriving, studios need to release a wider variety of movies. Any dip in box office returns is more about the quality of the film than a lack of interest in going to the cinema. It’s disheartening to see theater owners struggling with such limited and uninspiring new releases when it’s evident that there’s still a passionate movie audience, as demonstrated by films like A Minecraft Movie. Surely there’s room for more comedies, rom-coms, and other genres in the current slate of films.

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2025-04-07 17:15

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