Latest news with #Minecraft-related
Forbes
09-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
‘A Minecraft Movie'—The Chicken Jockey Meme, Explained
'A Minecraft Movie,' starring Jack Black, inspired many memes A Minecraft Movie has struck gold at the box office, and attracted cheering crowds reacting wildly to the film, thanks to a TikTok meme. During showings of the film, crowds of Minecraft fans—mostly teens—are joining in with every Minecraft-related phrase that Jack Black shouts out, especially 'Chicken Jockey.' The film adaptation of the incredibly popular video game, A Minecraft Movie fell flat with critics with 48% on Rotten Tomatoes, but has been met with hysterical audience reactions thanks to memes that spread online before the film's release. Like showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and The Room, fans are participating and interacting with the film as though they are attending a rock concert, with some instances of disruptive behavior. The scene that sparked this viral trend sees Jack Black and Jason Momoa trapped in a boxing ring, with Momoa facing an adorable baby zombie riding a chicken, a rare enemy that can be found in the game. 'A Minecraft Movie' Chicken Jockey Steve yells 'Chicken Jockey,' and the theatre crowd reacts, yelling along, and sometimes, even throwing popcorn. There are videos of packed theatres celebrating the trend all over the internet, but what first inspired the meme? In the film, Black plays 'Steve,' the closest thing that Minecraft has to a protagonist, but the character doesn't have a real personality in the video game—he's more like a mascot, a default skin. When the first trailer for A Minecraft Movie was released, fans were surprised to see Black in the role, and the trailer was mocked online. Black delivers his lines with the hyper-enthusiast delivery he's known for, which proved to be prime meme material. Despite the initial reaction, few Minecraft fans planned to skip the film. First released in 2009, Minecraft is old enough to be nostalgic for millennials, but the game has never diminished in popularity—it's difficult to describe the depth of influence that Minecraft has had on the pop culture of Gen Z and Gen Alpha. On YouTube alone, there are genres within genres of Minecraft videos, with boundless narrative possibilities; A Minecraft Movie was bound to attract a gargantuan audience, no matter what. According to KnowYourMeme, video edits of Chicken Jockey and other lines emerged in response to the film's trailers. Clips of Jack Black and his dramatic delivery spread through the internet, resulting in Steve's lines being memorized and anticipated before the film's release. As soon as A Minecraft Movie hit cinemas, fans were ready, shouting along with Black, 'Chicken Jockey,' 'Flint and Steel,' and 'I… am Steve.' Mr. Beast even joined in the meme on TikTok, entering a movie theatre accompanied by an army of Minecraft fans dressed as Steve, ready to shout the memes in unison. Amusingly, many of the events and characters of A Minecraft Movie have nothing whatsoever to do with the game, making Black's Steve and his constant, enthusiastic references to Minecraft stand out, evidence that A Minecraft Movie really is a Minecraft movie. Frankly, it's difficult to understand if the celebration is ironic or earnest—the meme seems to walk a wobbly line between both.
The Guardian
07-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
A Minecraft Movie breaks records to become highest opening video game movie of all time
A Minecraft Movie has broken box office records to record the highest ever first weekend total for a video game adaptation. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the film took $163m (£128m) on its first three days at the North American box office (including approximately $10m for preview screenings on Thursday), which puts it well ahead of the previous record holder The Super Mario Bros Movie, which took $146m on its opening weekend in the US and Canada in 2023. A Minecraft Movie also made a significant impact outside North America, adding a further $151m in the 75 territories where it was released in its global rollout. In China, where Hollywood blockbusters don't always connect with a mass audience, the film earned around $14.5m and dethroned another record-breaker, Ne Zha 2, which became the most commercially successful animated film of all time in March. In the UK, the box office was even higher, at £15.5m, making it the strongest performer outside North America. With more than 300m sales and over 140 million players each month, Minecraft is the bestselling video game of all time, with more than 1.3tn views of Minecraft-related videos on YouTube; its developers, Mojang, were acquired in 2014 by Microsoft for $2.5bn. A movie version had been in development since 2014 in conjunction with Hollywood studio Warner Bros, and with the involvement of production company Legendary (Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, Godzilla and Dune), the film started shooting in January 2024. Directed by Jared Hess, and starring Jason Momoa, Jack Black and Danielle Brooks, A Minecraft Movie follows a group of humans who stumble across a portal to Minecraft's block-world. An initial trailer release in September triggered negative reactions, not dissimilar to that which greeted the first Sonic the Hedgehog trailer in 2019, while the sheer profusion of Minecraft-related video material on YouTube, with creators including CaptainSparklez, Aphmau, and Prestonplayz, also led to suggestions that a feature film spin-off was unnecessary. One prominent YouTuber, ElVitt0ri0, told the Guardian that any Minecraft adaptation should be 'an actual piece of love towards the fans by fans, not just some corpo-vomited product by a big company'. In the event, critics' response to the released movie have been broadly positive, with New York magazine Vulture suggesting 'it feels like a small miracle that the resulting film is so funny, lively, and light on its feet', and Entertainment Weekly saying it is 'a breath of fresh air after so many family films that seem preordained by lore'. The Guardian called it 'an enjoyable if hectic experience', while the Observer's Wendy Ide offered one of the few unambiguously negative takes, calling it 'cobbled-together' and an 'egregious IP cash-in'. However, audience members have been posting videos online showcasing enthusiastic reactions, including cheering the 'chicken jockey!' moment, referencing a cult Minecraft meme.
