A Minecraft Movie doesn’t look especially good. Fans of the sport have been bemoaning the concept of a movie adaptation for years. Few games rely more heavily on their gameplay than Minecraft. Taking the interactivity out of Minecraft is a troublesome proposition, balancing a whole feature film on the back of iconography. Still, a talented filmmaker could make an excellent movie out of anything. Jared Hess, the director in command of making an excellent movie out of Minecraft, is a weird alternative for the gig.
It’s unfair to suggest a director cannot make one sort of film simply because they have not done so before. If a filmmaker becomes an icon off the back of a couple of stellar horror movies, that does not preclude them from nailing a romantic comedy. Even in the event that they’ve struggled to capture a particular tone or genre up to now, movies can go improper for countless different reasons. It remains to be interesting to invest how a particular director might handle a brand new project, especially with a body of labor as varied as Hess’.
Jared Hess is Making A Minecraft Movie
Director | Jared Hess |
|---|---|
Writers | Chris Bowman and Hubbel Palmer |
Stars | Jack Black, Jason Momoa, Emma Myers, Danielle Brooks, and Sebastian Eugene Hansen |
Release Date | April 4, 2025 |
The thing that eventually became A Minecraft Movie technically began around 2014, though Mojang began receiving film offers not less than two years earlier. Given the decade-long run-up, it should surprise no one which Jared Hess was not the primary director Warner Bros. tapped for the project. Minecraft creator Notch famously shut down an try and crowdfund a fan film shortly before he announced his interactions with WB and only five years before Microsoft began distancing themselves from him for his vocal support for conspiracy theories.
WB first approached Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy for the project, but he was gone two months later. It’s At all times Sunny in Philadelphia star Rob McElhenney stepped up in 2015, moving through two sets of writers within the three years he stuck around. He left in 2018, citing scheduling conflicts. Peter Sollett, most recently known for Metal Lords, became the following credited director. The pandemic buried the film for nearly 4 years, but by the point it returned, it did so without Sollet. Finally, Jared Hess signed on because the fourth and (probably) final director. The world won’t ever know what the minds behind Free Guy, Mythic Quest, or Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist might need done with Minecraft.
What else has Jared Hess done?
Jared Hess exploded onto the scene with considered one of the defining movies of the 2000s, Napoleon Dynamite. Hess’ debut feature didn’t just make 100 times its modest budget and earn positive reviews; it practically rewrote most human interaction for the generation that grew up with it. 20 years later, it’s hard to overstate the impact Napoleon Dynamite had on popular culture. It’s going to almost actually be Hess’ magnum opus. It is a deeply personal autobiographical work that seems to put out Hess’s childhood and all of its eccentricities in a single 95-minute package. Anything would have struggled to follow the film that dominated every T-shirt in North America, but that popularity has followed Hess.
Nacho Libre forged Jack Black as a luchador and massively overrelied on a single joke. Napoleon Dynamite actually never could’ve struck twice, but Nacho Libre is not an try and recapture the old glory. It’s one other off-beat comedy, but the shortage of strong characterization robbed Hess’s sophomore effort of its impact. His next two projects, Gentleman Broncos and Don Verdean, were each critically bashed and widely ignored. His 2016 film, Masterminds, brought him back to a more middling critical popularity but still did not draw eyes. Hess co-directed his first kid’s film with Thelma the Unicorn for Netflix in 2024. It’s his second project ever to receive a Certified Fresh rating from Rotten Tomatoes.
What does Jared Hess’ profession say about A Minecraft Movie?
Hess’s current filmography makes him an interesting alternative for A Minecraft Movie. He’s worked with a variety of the opposite talent on the project. Writers Chris Bowman and Hubbell Palmer previously worked with Hess on Masterminds. Most of Hess’s previous projects were collaborations together with his wife, Jerusha, who co-wrote Napoleon Dynamite. Thelma is his first and only kid’s film to this point, however it got here with help from first-time director and longtime animator Lynn Wang. Bizarrely, Hess’s best post-Napoleon Dynamite work is in documentaries. His Murder Among the many Mormons and Muscles and Mayhem Netflix miniseries are each excellent, providing him with a solid path away from his quirky comedy gimmick. Still, Hess stated that he provided the pitch that became A Minecraft Movie, suggesting that he isn’t just taking on another person’s project.
A Minecraft Movie doesn’t look anything like Hess’s work. It lacks the sincerity and depth of his early work and the outsider oddity of his newer pieces. Not unlike Thelma the Unicorn, it’s going to probably feel completely out of step in his filmography. If it is analogous, the trailers are selling the improper movie. Hess’s influence might be not the thing that sinks this movie. It’s only one block within the grim monument to merchandising Warner Bros. insists on constructing. It seems fitting that the guy who popularized “Vote for Pedro” shirts would go right back to selling merch.
