‘A Minecraft Movie’ Looks to Liven Sluggish Box Office With $140M Opening WW

After a streak of less than $100M+ weekends at the box office, the film industry turns its lonely eyes to Warner Bros, which has a potential goldmine in Legendary‘s A Minecraft Movie with an outlook of $140M worldwide. Somewhere, somehow, this will overindex, either overseas and/or domestic. Warner is seeing $65M stateside and $65M abroad for $130M. Right now, we’re giving overseas the edge given the funky marketplace in U.S./Canada.

Spring break is still happening with 14% K-12 schools off according to Comscore, and following Disney’s Captain America: Brave New World, boy, does the theatrical business need a hit at a time when domestic is dragging -11% in Q1 behind the same period in 2024. Minecraft also comes at a much needed time for Warners which has suffered two auteurish bombs in Barry Levinson’s $50M Alto Knights and Bong Joon Ho’s $100M+ costing Mickey 17.

Previews in U.S./Canada start at 3PM for the Jared Hess directed feature take of the Mojang game which cost before P&A around $150M, three-quarters funded by Warners. A Minecraft Movie is booked at 3,400 locations with all premium upcharges working in its favor — Imax, Dolby, PLFs, and motion seats.

Whose the audience? Why all the legacy and young players of the bestselling video game of all time with 300 million copies sold and nearly 140M monthly active players. Unaided awareness is best with men and women under 25 and not far from Sonic the Hedgehog ($58M opening). First choice is also very solid in both those demos and higher than the first Sonic.

A Minecraft Movie opens in 75 markets this week across 32,000 screens. Among majors, France bows today; followed by Germany, Italy and Australia on Thursday; and with the UK, Spain, China, Brazil and Mexico going Friday. Not in the opening suite are Japan and Korea.

The game is wildly popular the world over, including notably in the UK, Brazil and Germany as well as India, China and Australia. Comps to keep in mind are Sonic the Hedgehog and Jumanji.

Anticipation is high overseas while Minecraft is currently leading China pre-sales on Friday. Ne Zha 2 is slowing down in the market, and another local title is also opening this session.

Among stops on the international promotional tour for the Minecraft team were the world premiere in London and a well-attended fan event in Mexico where a strong opening is expected.

Also going wide this weekend in 1,250 stateside is NEON’s teen Hell of a Summer starring Finn Wolfard and co-directed and co-written by the Stranger Things thespian with Billy Bryk. The movie made its world premiere at TIFF 2023. U.S./Canada outlook is north of $1M. The pic was made for $3M. Reviews are so-so at 50% Rotten. The movie follows 24-year-old camp counselor Jason Hochberg (Fred Hechinger), who arrives at Camp Pineway thinking his biggest problem is that he feels out of touch with his teenage co-workers. What he doesn’t know is that a masked killer is lurking on the campgrounds, brutally picking counselors off one by one. Previews start Thursday at 7PM.