Minecraft reads last rites for comic book films

As reported here yesterday, young cinemagoers are being warned against bad behaviour in screenings of A Minecraft Movie.

For Hollywood, the film is proving good as gold. Before its release last weekend, the industry was facing its worst March box office in decades and Warner Bros. studio bosses were rumoured to be facing the chop.

Reviews of A Minecraft Movie were dreadful: “an expensively cheap, 100 per cent corporate mess”, “boring, bad and annoying”, “a hyperactive hot pink mess”.

But its record-breaking opening weekend and cumulative global takings of $336 million and counting means it’s overtaken The Super Mario Bros. Movie as the biggest video game adaptation and seems set to pass Barbie’s $1.4 billion at the box office.

Does the subpar writing or uninteresting direction matter? Not to audiences, apparently – and not to studio executives, as long as they understand that video game movies spell doom for comic book movies. Avengers, disassemble.

Photo credit: Warner Bros. Discovery