Warner Bros confirmed on Monday morning that A Minecraft Movie opened over the weekend on $163m in North America, a huge result and considerably higher than weekend estimates of $150m that cements its status as the top debut of 2025, the studio’s best since 2023, and the highest-grossing debut by a video game adaptation over the Friday to Sunday period.
Jared Hess’s family feature starring Jack Black, Jason Momoa, Denielle Brooks, and Jennifer Coolidge launched in 4,263 sites and earned $57.2m on Friday, $59.5m on Saturday, and $46.3m on Sunday. Legendary Pictures co-financed 25% of the budget and the film is well on its way to profitability after initial estimates of a debut in the $80m range.
The North American component contributed to a $313.7m global haul that included $150.7m from international markets and gave box office a much-needed boost. Heading into the weekend North American ticket sales trailed 2024 by around 13%. That figure has now been shaved down to 5.3%.
Warner Bros global distribution head Jeff Goldstein and his team planned the release in time for spring break when large numbers of children in the United States would be out of school. The marketing campaign enlisted more than 40 partners including McDonald’s, the Oreo cookie brand, and green milk to target children and families.
The stellar performance of A Minecraft Movie will ease some of the pressure on the studios. After a string of misfires at the box office including early 2025 releases Mickey 17 on $45.2m after five weeks in release and Alto Knights on approximately $6m after two, reports emerged that Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav was looking for potential replacements for studio co-heads Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy.
While this week will offer a far more positive inflection at the Burbank-based studio, the 2025 pipeline contains big bets.
Ryan Coogler’s period vampire film Sinners starring the director’s frequent collaborator Michael B. Jordan arrives amid little fanfare on April 18 and was a title unfamiliar to many attendees at CinemaCon last week, although those who have seen it were full of praise.
James Gunn’s Superman opens on July 11 and as the first feature to emerge from Gunn and Peter Safran’s rebooted DC Studios and the latest in a line of Superman films, it will be a litmus test. Lead David Corenswet is new to global audiences (then again, so was the late Christopher Reeve on Richard Donner’s 1978 version and that film turned him into a household name) and stars alongside Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane and Nicholas Hoult in the role of antagonist Lex Luthor.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s September 26 dark comedy One Battle After Another stars Leonardo DiCaprio, however the multiple Oscar-nominated auteur director has never had a film gross more than $77m worldwide (since There Will Be Blood in 2007) and his latest reportedly costs $130m.
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