Live-Action 'Minecraft' Movie Finally Sets Spring 2022 Release Date

It's been a long road to the big screen for the popular world-building video game Minecraft. Warner Bros. Pictures landed the rights back in 2014, and since then directors like Shawn Levy (Stranger Things) and Rob McElhenney (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) have come and gone from the project. More recently, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist director Peter Sollett signed on to helm the Minecraft movie, and now the studio has given it an official release date.

Over at the official Minecraft website, an official press release from the game's developer and movie's executive producer, Mojang, has announced a March 4, 2022 release date for the movie. An official press release announced the news in a rather cheesy way:

"Normally, when we're talking about blockbusters on Minecraft.net, we're being clever (or so we like to think!) about pickaxes. Sometimes about shovels.

Well, it looks like we may have to come up with new and funnier, punnier puns (as if that's even possible) for future pickaxe-related musings. Why? The one above will be taken. Because today, we're beyond excited to reveal the premiere date for the upcoming Minecraft movie!

That date is March 4, 2022. Does it sound distant? We beg to differ! It's only 1053 days. Or about 34 months, or 150 weeks, or a million and a half minutes. Not that we're counting, of course. Besides, it turns out that making a live-action, full-length feature film is really complicated!"

The press release also further confirmed the story at the center of the Minecraft movie. The movie will follow a teenage girl and an unlikely group of adventurers as they set out to save their blocky Overworld from the malevolent and destructive Ender Dragon. But what we're still wondering is how a movie with an aesthetic of blocks resembling pixels will translate to live-action without looking extremely goofy. Could we be looking at something like Pixels again?

Previously, Steve Carell was said to be attached to the project, but his name isn't mentioned at all in the press release, and there's a chance that he fell away during the last swap of directors. That's probably for the best since his family fare efforts have mostly been misses.

For those fans who are wondering how Minecraft will work on the big screen, the press release addressed that this wouldn't deliver exactly what makes the game loved by millions. After all, it's about literally building worlds with blocks, so how could it? Mojang says:

"Since we're a game developer first, making a movie will be new and very exciting. And while the movie has to be different from the game (otherwise, you'd be in for an infinite movie in very low resolution) one thing will definitely be the same. We want to make the movie — just as we make the game — for you."

So the Minecraft movie will be for the fans. You heard it here first! So if the movie comes out and critics don't like it, then we know what the problem is!

In the meantime, you can keep playing Minecraft whenever you want. As for me, I will stick with Minesweeper, which is the video game that truly deserves its own movie.