Another video game role for the voice of Bowser and Claptrap
According to Deadline and Variety, actor-musician Jack Black is still Hollywood’s go-to guy for video game roles: he’ll play Steve in the upcoming Minecraft film. In the live-action adaptation of Mojang’s massive sandbox game, Black joins actors Jason Momoa (Aquaman), Danielle Brooks (Peacemaker), and Emma Myers (Wednesday).
Of course, Black was the voice of Bowser in last year’s billion-dollar blockbuster adaptation of the Super Mario Bros. franchise (and the crooner of “Peaches,” just one aspect of what made him the best thing about The Super Mario Bros. Movie). Black will also appear as Claptrap in the upcoming Borderlands adaptation, as well as in two Jumanji films. All of this is to say that Jack Black has a lot of gamer cred, thanks to his roles in Broken Age, Psychonauts 2, and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2.
We still don’t know what the Minecraft movie is about, and Deadline reports that writing credits are “still being determined.” But we do know that director Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite) is directing the film and that he will reunite with Black after their collaboration on Nacho Libre in 2006.
For nearly a decade, some version of the Minecraft film has been in the works. Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum) was attached to the project from the beginning. Rob McElhenney, creator and star of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, was the next to try his hand at it, attempting to create a Minecraft-flavored adventure in the style of the 1985 cult classic The Goonies. Peter Sollett (The Path) tried as well, with a version about “a teenage girl and her unlikely group of adventurers” attempting to save their blocky Overworld from an Ender Dragon. Hess took over as director alongside Momoa in 2022, and it’s unclear if the story has changed since Sollett’s attempt.
Steve, the original default character avatar for Minecraft, has a female counterpart in Alex. More characters were later added by developer Mojang, including Ari, Efe, Kai, Makena, Noor, Sunny, and Zuri. The Minecraft film is scheduled to be released on April 4, 2025, by Warner Bros. and Legendary. The live-action projects are expected to begin production “immediately.”