Minecraft topples Mario with historic box office weekend

A Minecraft Movie just beat Captain America and Mario at the box office.

The new film, inspired by the beloved brick-based video game and starring Jack Black and Jason Mamoa, pulled in $157 million at its domestic box office opening this weekend. That’s more than double analysts’ early prediction that the film would gross $60 million. It’s also well past the record of the previous top opener of 2025, Disney’s Captain America: Brave New World, which netted $88.5 million at its opening weekend—meaning A Minecraft Movie has now enjoyed the most successful opening weekend of the year.

By video game-to-movie adaptation standards, the Minecraft film is also playing in a league of its own. In 2019, for example, Pokémon: Detective Pikachu opened with a $58 million weekend, and, last year, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 opened with $60 million at the box office (considered a strong start at the time). The Super Mario Bros. Movie, released in 2023, was the previous record holder for the largest video game adaptation opening weekend of all time, raking in $145 million. By all accounts, A Minecraft Movie’s debut has been a smashing success.

Rocky Horror for Gen Alpha?

To some extent, it makes sense that A Minecraft Movie might appeal to wide audiences, given that, as of 2023, it had sold over 300 million copies, making it the second most-sold video game behind only Tetris. Still, even the most optimistic industry analysts capped the film’s potential box office open earnings at $90 million, and it had a so-so rating of 48% on Rotten Tomatoes before this weekend. 

One explanation for the film’s success could be its memeability. Over the weekend, many viewers took to social media to share that younger audiences—particularly Gen Alpha—seemed to be turning the Minecraft movie-viewing experience into an interactive event. Videos of audiences clapping every few minutes, reciting lines aloud, and even throwing popcorn in the air have all gone viral on TikTok, with some viewers even reporting that the police had to be called to their screenings to settle audiences down.

“I saw Minecraft in the theater with my kids last night and am still processing what I saw,” one tweet with 46,000 likes reads. “The only cinematic experience I can compare the audience participation to is Rocky Horror, except it’s with teenagers and their phones and the movie is not even a weekend old.”

Audiences have particularly taken to one scene in which a baby zombie (one of Minecraft’s main monsters) rides a cuboid chicken, causing Black’s character to exclaim, “Chicken jockey!” Clips of audiences reacting rowdily to the scene made the rounds over the weekend, which, in turn, only attracted more viewers eager to join the trend to theaters.

“the minecraft movie is truly one of the worst movies i’ve ever seen but the universal reaction to ‘chicken jockey’ im seeing made it all worth it,” one X user wrote. Another added, “The Minecraft Movie is a must watch cultural experience,” over a video of audience members giving the “chicken jockey” scene a standing ovation.

Considering that the film has been in theaters for just four days, only time will tell whether A Minecraft Movie becomes the next Rocky Horror Picture Show, or if (in a much more likely scenario) young fans’ outsized reactions are only a passing fad.

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