Parents, get the tarps, because it’s about to start raining popcorn all over your living room floor.
A Minecraft Movie, the big-screen adaptation of the crazy-popular block-stacking video game, is streaming on HBO Max starting Friday, June 20. When the film hit theaters back in April, it flummoxed many observers by becoming the first true box-office sensation of 2025. It’s the highest-grossing US domestic release of the year, earning $423.8 million in the US and $953.5 million globally, good for second-place worldwide, behind China’s Ne Zha 2.
Not only that, the now-famous ‘Chicken Jockey’ scene sparked a TikTok trend, while the Jack Black-sung jingle ‘Steve’s Lava Chicken’ became the shortest song to ever chart in the Billboard Hot 100, clocking in at 34 seconds long.
So what the heck is A Minecraft Movie about? Well, it stars Jason Momoa as a former video game champion, who, along with some kids from their tiny Idaho town, travel into the colourful world of the game and find themselves at war with an army of porcine Piglins – with an assist from a guy named Steve (Black), who’s been trapped in the cube-shaped world for years. Maybe that sounds headache-inducing for adults, but it’s really pretty fun. put it this way: ‘[A]t heart what [director Jared Hess] has crafted is a goofy and genuinely quite loveable homage to the ‘80s ‘quest’ movie. Think Willow, think Labyrinth, think The NeverEnding Story, think Legend.’
In any case, it doesn’t really matter what you think: A Minecraft Movie might qualify as the first true Gen Z event movie. And if you’ve got a kid and an HBO Max subscription, prepare to find it on your TV a lot in the near future. Stream it here starting June 20.
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