Minecraft is even bigger when the actuals are all said and done, as the flick has opened bigger than Barbie with nearly a $163 million domestic box office opening.
Box office numbers
As we went over, the estimates pegged Minecraft at opening only around $50M-$60M, but the flick 3x’d those numbers. Sunday saw the film coming in at around $157M for the weekend, but the actual is $162,753,003.
Likewise, the international box office numbers are better with $150,700,000.
The worldwide box office gross for A Minecraft Movie is now at $313,453,003. The film cost $150M to make.
Barbie, another “event” film, opened to $162,022,044 domestically and finished with over a massive $1.447 billion box office.
Minecraft dailies:
- Apr 4 Friday: $57,113,324 (includes Thursday)
- Apr 5 Saturday: $59,409,839
- Apr 6 Sunday: $46,229,840
What happened?
I know for a fact that presale ticket numbers justified that sketchy $50M opening. What happened is that Minecraft had great walk-ups. My two sons went with their buddies and loved the experience. While they said A Minecraft Movie isn’t a great film, it’s at least enjoyable to watch, especially when seen in theaters due to the fan interaction.
If you haven’t seen the videos online, check out one below where all the young kids are having a grand old time, likely at the expense of boomers who didn’t expect all the excitement (lol). The excitement also led to people going to see Minecraft multiple times to experience the excitement over and over.
We also probably have WB marketing to thank. I’d bet good money that WB paid certain influencers to record at the theater and hoot and holler things up. Well, it worked. The Minecraft “meme” went viral, everybody saw the videos on social media and then went to the theater. As I tweeted myself, I wouldn’t be surprised if the next big genre of movies is the “meme” movie. Sorry, Marvel.
Police had to kick several kids out of the theater during a showing of #Minecraft
— Culture Crave 🍿 (@CultureCrave) April 6, 2025
They were screaming and throwing popcorn during the ‘Chicken Jockey’ scene pic.twitter.com/qLU71sFjOY
Reception
The critics poo-poo’d all over Minecraft as the Rotten Tomatoes Score is lower at 48%.
The Rotten Tomatoes fan score is the same at 87%. Worth a mention is that your rating and review at Rotten Tomatoes only counts if you bought a ticket using the Fandango app. So if your friend bought you a ticket or you used another app or bought them directly at the theater, your rating and review doesn’t count.
CinemaScore is a lukewarm B+. IMDb rating is 6.1.
What’s next?
What’s next for Minecraft is whether or not the film will have any legs. Barbie dropped less than 43% in its second weekend, bringing in over $93M. For Minecraft to achieve anything close to a billion at the box office, it will need similar legs.
That said, WB can definitely sit back and enjoy the win. Ditto, especially for Jack Black, who received millions of dislikes on the trailers, but comes through big time. Jason Momoa as well.
The $163M opening for A Minecraft Movie is WB’s third-largest opening after 2011’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 ($169M) and 2016’s Batman v Superman ($166M). It also comes at a much-needed time following a string of bombs at the company and executive shakeups.
