How Minecraft beat Barbie at the box office thanks to crazed teens and TikTok – and why parents are scared to watch it

AFTER taking the world of gaming by storm, Minecraft has given a whole new meaning to the term blockbuster.

A Minecraft Movie, based on the best-selling computer game in history, smashed all expectations to become the biggest film of 2025 so far.

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Released two weeks ago, the movie, starring Jack Black and Jason Momoa, raked in £237million at the box office in its opening weekend.

In the US alone, it made £123million over the same period, beating scores of blockbusters including Barbie and The Hunger Games, and nearly doubling the takings of Oppenheimer.

While many critics have sat on the fence, audiences love it — though maybe a bit too much.

Screenings have descended into chaos, with a social media craze seeing hysterical teens shouting out and chucking popcorn.

One screening even saw seats being ripped up, while another had a live chicken brought in.

The cinemas frenzy has echoes of 1956, when teens across Britain smashed up seats so they could dance to Bill Haley’s film Rock Around The Clock.

The movie was banned in several cities, provoking further mini-riots.

In an era of huge flops such as Snow White, Minecraft has been heralded as the saviour of cinema and proof kids will still go to the movies.

After all, the game that inspired the film is played by more than 140million people each month — even in Antarctica and the Vatican.

But given the pandemonium it inspired, others wonder, if this is the future of cinema-going, is it worth saving?

The film follows a group of real-world misfits sucked through a portal into the block-building world of Minecraft.

There, they meet Steve, the central character of the game, played by Jack Black.

The group then has to navigate a series of threats to finally return home safe and sound.

Plans for a movie adaptation had been in the works for more than a decade, shifting through several producers, directors and storylines before filming finally began in January last year.

At one point, British comic Matt Berry was said to be in line to play the lead role.

Chicken jockey

But it went to Black, and it is his shouted phrase “chicken jockey” in the film that triggers all the chaos in the audience, mostly among teenage boys.

Thanks to a TikTok craze, it is the cue for teens to shout at the top of their lungs while jumping around and throwing popcorn.

It has got so bad that cinemas are now issuing stern warnings beforehand and threatening to call the police.

One moviegoer told the BBC: “It was the worst cinema experience of my life. I left the cinema with lettuce down me and they were rude about female characters.”

Another in Wales told the Powys County Times: “Quite honestly, I’ve seen monkeys at Chester Zoo behave more civilised than those at the 1.45pm showing on Saturday.”

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To help control the behaviour, branches of Cineworld held one-off “Chicken Jockey screenings” on Sunday, where audiences were encouraged to dress up and shout at will.

But they were warned to not “go full Creeper” — a reference to the Minecraft characters known for blowing themselves up.

Audiences in America have been even worse, committing outright vandalism.

One cinema in New Jersey had a whole row of seats ripped out and the entire auditorium trashed.

And fans in Utah even managed to smuggle in a live chicken, which they held up to whoops from others in the audience.

To help calm matters, Jack Black appeared at one screening and told the audience: “Please, no throwing popped corn, and also absolutely no Chicken Jockey.”

But the film’s delighted director, Jared Hess, could not be happier.

“It’s been so bananas, and I’ve seen so many funny videos,” he told Entertainment Weekly.

“It’s great, especially when people are climbing on their friends’ shoulders and standing up and cheering for those moments.

“I’m just glad people are making memories with their friends and families.”

Any parent who has ever had to drag their child away from the computer will know that the Minecraft craze is nothing new.

Released in 2009, the game quickly became a sensation.

Players are “spawned” into the blocky, low-definition and virtually infinite world as the character Steve.

From there, they can “mine” resources and then “craft” them into other items.

But what really gives the game its appeal is the near-unlimited freedom it offers.

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Armies of players have gone viral for recreating entire online cities, while others have even built working computers entirely within the game that can run Minecraft within itself.

In 2014, the game was sold to Microsoft for an unprecedented $2.5billion dollars.

The deal made its creator, Swedish programmer Markus “Notch” Persson, an overnight billionaire.

A month after completing the sale, he outbid Beyonce for a home in California’s Beverly Hills, which at $70million was a record for the area at the time.

But it was not all a fairy tale.

Soon after the sale, he wrote: “Partying with famous people, able to do whatever I want, and I’ve never felt more isolated.”

Multi-millionaires

Instead, he sought out controversy, calling feminism a “social disease” and posting the far-right mantra, “It’s OK to be white” to Twitter.

Persson’s erratic behaviour ended up with him being excluded from the game’s ten-year anniversary celebrations in 2019.

By this time, Minecraft had taken on a life of its own.

Numerous YouTubers launched their careers off the back of “let’s play” videos, going on to become multi-millionaires.

Among them is MrBeast, whose net worth now sits north of half a billion dollars, and who recently wrapped filming Amazon Prime game show Beast Games, the largest reality show ever created.

Others, such as PewDiePie, are huge celebs in their own right — if you’re under 25, that is.

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Having conquered the big screen — becoming most popular video game film adaptation in history, dethroning The Super Mario Bros Movie — Minecraft is now set to enter the world of theme park attractions, hotels and shopping experiences.

A multi-million pound deal has been signed with park operators Merlin Entertainments, with plans to open attractions in the UK and US in 2026 and 2027.

And Warner Bros appears to have already green-lit a movie sequel.

Asked if one was in development, co-chairman and CEO Mike De Luca said: “The ink might not be dry on the deals yet, but imminently.”

Having crafted a film-going sensation, it remains to be seen whether the hype among today’s young audiences can be sustained.

Let’s just hope the next big thing doesn’t come with live animals in the theatre.

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