'Minecraft': Live Chickens, Popcorn & the Gen Z 'Blur' that Should Scare Studios78% of audience is 13-24, mocking the film, and themselves, in a meme-y phenom that defies marketing as 'head-in-the-sand' execs remain 'oblivious'
Matthew Frank previously covered L.A.’s Democratic donor rage, Gen Z’s digital war with Hollywood and the YouTuber caught in the Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni saga.In Red Dead Redemption 2, one of the highest-grossing video games of all time, Roger Clark played Arthur Morgan, the main character of the neo Western. Clark attends fan conventions and records Cameos for fans for $159 a pop. That distinctive perspective — from the other side of the controller — gives Clark a keen understanding of modern fandom and gamer fan culture. Clark, like a lot of parents of fifth- and sixth-grade children, took his kids to a showing of A Minecraft Movie on the Saturday of opening weekend. What he saw defied any preconceived notions of fandom he had. “I’ve never seen anything like it before,” says Clark, who detailed his experience in a viral X thread which racked up more than 1.5 million views. “High school kids and adolescents alike screaming random Jack Black lines because of YouTube Shorts and TikToks,” he wrote, incredulous. When he and I chat several days later, Clark still can’t quite process the theatrical event he witnessed, describing it as “surreal” and grasping for analogies ranging from B horror movies of the 1950s to Troll 2, which Vice called “the Best Worst Movie Ever Made.” “Some of it’s ironic, some of it’s just making fun of it,” he says. “But a lot of it’s also just people making fun of themselves and the way memes become viral on the internet.” Meta enough for you? If you know anything about A Minecraft Movie by now, you know two things. It’s a massive box office hit: $291 million and counting domestic and more than $560 million worldwide in less than two full weeks. And you’ve likely heard about the 13- to 24-year-old moviegoers cheering, tossing popcorn, getting the cops called on them and, in one instance, hoisting a live chicken when Black’s character says the phrase “chicken jockey” (a deep-cut Minecraft reference).  The in-theater antics have been credited with the movie’s success (at least in part), and from that, Hollywood has collectively nodded sagaciously at the rising value of video game IP, the gold to be discovered in mining (if you will) recent IP — Minecraft debuted in 2009 — and Black’s bona fide stardom in kids’ movies (and maybe co-star Jason Momoa too). What does Warner Bros. make of all this? Following opening weekend, film chiefs Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy sent a companywide memo, proclaiming, “This is what happens when we believe in the power of our creativity, each other, and the strength of great storytelling.” They also made note of the “creativity and collaboration of teams across WB Pictures and the entire company” to spark “incredible reactions from audiences everywhere,” namely, scores of “viral videos.” De Luca also said on April 11 that development on a sequel will begin “imminently.” Meanwhile, everyone is eyeing other IP that seems to fit the mold, from Roblox — also a building game platform, launched in 2006, that has 85.3 million active daily users as of February — to Fortnite. The latter debuted in 2017 and has a registered user base of approximately 650 million; recall that Disney invested $1.5 billion in Fortnite parent Epic Games last year. But what if A Minecraft Movie is a hit for reasons that aren’t fully about the “strength of great storytelling”? It’s a pretty down-the-line kids flick, yet not only was 35 percent of the opening weekend audience ages 13-17, but another 43 percent was 18-24 (remember, young people no longer see movies, haha). So that’s a little weird, right? So, too, is the idea that Minecraft, a game with no preset narrative, won people over thanks to the movie’s plot. Minecraft’s success then may not be quite so tidy. If you dig deep into the online culture of those 13-24 year olds — Gen Z — different takeaways emerge... Subscribe to The Ankler. to unlock the rest.Become a paying subscriber of The Ankler. to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content. A subscription gets you:
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