When Mojang Studios first built Minecraft in 2009, a feature film adaptation seemed like a distant dream. But fans of the world’s most popular video game know to never say Nethter.
April 4 brings the release of A Minecraft Movie, the first cinematic rendering of Mojang’s block-based open world. Directed by Napoleon Dynamite’s Jared Hess and starring Jack Black and Jason Momoa, the Warner Bros.-backed live action film drops a quartet of travelers into a landscape that’s familiar to the more than 170 million active players who visit it every month on their computer screens.
Keeping the terrain familiar to those players was one of the guiding forces behind the Warner Bros.’ massive Minecraft Movie marketing campaign. Overseen by Dana Nussbaum, EVP of worldwide marketing, and Christian Davin, EVP of worldwide marketing strategy, the campaign includes partnerships with brands like McDonald’s and Poppi, in-game advertising, and activations at fan-centric events like Brazil’s CCXP convention.
“We looked at it through the lens of gamifying the campaign and making it fun and immersive,” Nussbaum told ADWEEK, pointing to the activations—which brought the game’s blocky characters and environments to life—as the purest example of that approach. “The No. 1 thing we were thinking was: ‘How do we blockify the world? We had to think outside the box—or, I guess, the block.”
“We wanted fans, content creators, and the press to be able to interact with the game in real life as you would in the virtual world,” echoed Davin. “The campaign was about ensuring that people could have the joy that comes with playing Minecraft.”
Game on
Minecraft is the latest property to ride the wave of video game adaptations that began in earnest with the inaugural Sonic the Hedgehog feature film in 2020. That Paramount-backed production famously took a time out on its nascent campaign when the initial design for Sega’s chili-dog chomping speed demon was met with widespread distaste among the Sonic faithful.
Within months, “Ugly Sonic” had been scrubbed from the movie in favor of a more familiar version of the character’s blue visage. Listening to fans awarded Paramount with a box office hit that has raced ahead to become one of the studio’s most lucrative franchises.
Other video game translations on the big and small screen have followed suit, including Universal and Illumination’s Nintendo-derived animated blockbuster The Super Mario Bros. Movie and HBO’s The Last of Us TV series, which were made and marketed in close collaboration with the companies and creatives responsible for the source material. Both Nussbaum and Davin similarly emphasize that Mojang was an equal creative partner on A Minecraft Movie.
“We were building a campaign for a film, but we wanted to make sure it always had that degree of authenticity to the game,” Nussbaum noted. “That partnership with Mojang was critical.”
Mojang’s fingerprints are all over the movie’s marketing, with lead creative designer Jens Bergensten and senior creative director of entertainment and online Torfi Frans Olaffson—both of whom are big names in Minecraft fandom—popping up throughout the promotional materials. The game studio also put the movie at the center of a Minecraft Live event and contributed other in-game promotions.
For example, when advanced tickets went on sale via Fandango, purchasers could secure a jetpack for their next flight across the Overworld. “That type of creative thinking around making a transactional moment an organic moment in the game allowed us to tie the movie world and the game world together, and let fans feel like this marriage was organic,” Davin said. “Mojang was with us every step of the way.”
Family first
The families that play Minecraft together, stay together… to see the movie. With its PG rating and the presence of Black—one of the most consistently bankable stars in the family movie space—A Minecraft Movie is counting on capturing the kid-and-parent crowd who have spottily attended the year’s other offerings, including Snow White and Paddington in Peru.
The campaign has kept its eye squarely on the family demo through digital advertising, kid-friendly outdoor billboards, and the aforementioned partnerships with McDonald’s and Poppi, as well as Acorns Early—a money app and debit card for kids— and the all-things-potato food company Grown in Idaho.
Davin adds that teenagers—many of whom have been playing Minecraft since their Pre-K days—are taking it upon themselves to do their own promos for the movie on social platforms like TikTok. “They’ve grown up with the game, and it’s a mainstay in their lives,” he said. “Our TikTok hub has been really helpful in letting them create their own content and post their own content, and let them be a part of the campaign.”
Not for nothing, but kids and teens are also the audience that will hold A Minecraft Move to the highest standard in terms of its fidelity to the game. They’re also more than willing to point out when a cinematic creative choice doesn’t square with the source material.
Case in point: this writer’s Minecraft-playing daughter took issue with an Instagram Reel that featured the movie’s cast using the Ender Pearl to teleport from one international city to another—which isn’t precisely how its powers function in the game. Informed of this critique, Nussbaum and Davin can’t help but laugh.
“I love it,” Nussbaum said. “We’re going to do a focus group with her.”
Making Con-tact
A Minecraft Movie was referenced during Warner’s CinemaCon presentation this week with current studio heads Michael DeLuca and Pam Abdy referencing its “impressive” advanced ticket sales. The movie division could certainly use a success story right now after a series of high-profile releases—including Joker: Folie à Deux, Mickey 17, and The Alto Knights—failed to connect with audiences.
And if Minecraft makes a successful leap onto the big screen like Sonic and Mario, Warner’s would have a new franchise on its hands, allowing Davin and Nussbaum to continue blockifying the world for years to come. Regardless of whether a sequel moves forward or not, though, elements from the movie will continue to live on in the game world for at least the next year to coincide with its post-theatrical life on streaming and other digital platforms.
“It’s not done on April 4,” Nussbaum promised.
Reflecting on the campaign as a whole, Davin says that the opportunity to listen and learn from Minecraft’s youthful fanbase has been the biggest benefit of bringing a beloved video game to the big screen.
“Having conversations with that core audience and continuing that conversation throughout the marketing campaign is the key to success,” he noted. “A lot of our job was listening and reacting to what fans were saying, and then putting out more content that amplifies what’s working.”
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