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Forbes
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
‘A Minecraft Movie' VFX Team Talk Characters, Comedy, And Much More
Last weekend I took you behind the scenes of director Jared Hess' A Minecraft Movie, as VFX Supervisor Sheldon Stopsack and Animation Supervisor Kevin Estey talked about their ambitious work on the film. This weekend, I continue with an even deeper dive into how Wētā FX helped bring the world and characters of Minecraft to the big screen. You can read my first article about Wētā FX's work on A Minecraft Movie here, in which Stopsack and Estey discuss Wētā FX's heavy lifting to help bring the unique world of Minecraft to life, seamlessly blending the game's blocky designs with live-action filmmaking. At nearly $880 million worldwide box office and going strong, A Minecraft Movie is on course to finish as one of the year's biggest blockbusters and could even top some of the summer's top tentpoles like Fantastic Four: First Steps and Superman, depending on how many more ticket sales Minecraft can stack up as it approaches $900 million. VFX character designs for "A Minecraft Movie." Source: Wētā FX Wētā FX's detailed world-building was foundational for A Minecraft Movie. Stopsack explained, 'The question often comes up how our environments had an impact on the style and appearance of our characters. Ironically it was the other way around. Our characters had a strong influence on the environment. Particularly Malgosha and Dennis needed to create emotional connections with our cast. This was what in large part established how realistic or abstract we could go with the appearance and performance. We used this knowledge to apply to our environment to ensure that the digital character did not feel out of place." Their efforts resulted in the creation of the mindbogglingly expansive Overworld, combining 64 distinct terrains into a continuous environment for both day and night scenes. The vast digital landscape was shared with Digital Domain for the film's final battle. Stopsack highlighted the immense scale, saying, 'An interesting fun fact to illustrate the sheer scale we ended up with is our grass dressing. For the Overworld, we ended up placing more than 2 billion clumps of grass patches, comprised of individual grass blades.' VFX character designs for "A Minecraft Movie." Source: Wētā FX When I asked if there were creatures or other aspects that presented specific challenges or were particularly fun, Estey offered extensive insights about animating the distinct characters. 'Each character and creature we created has a unique story and presented its own challenge, whether big or small,' Estey noted, 'because none are the same as the next. We ended up with 26 unique characters and creatures, each needing its own distinct personality, behavior, and style of motion.' VFX work for Malgosha in "A Minecraft Movie." Source: Wētā FX Speaking about Malgosha, Estey remarked, "Malgosha was particularly unique as she didn't exist in the game but was a critical antagonist in the film. We were walking a fine line of introducing a new character to a community that knows the game, yet we had to ensure she still fit into the universe and would be accepted. Jared wanted all the characters in The Nether to look and feel as realistic and tangible as possible, yet still maintain an iconic blocky aesthetic so they could exist believably on screen alongside the actors." To achieve the right balance, Malgosha was given a fleshy, detailed appearance with jiggly jowls and a flowing cloak, but maintained a distinctive blockiness, combining realism with the iconic Minecraft look. He also noted a particularly fun part of the process involved some great physical comedy: "One of the most memorable scenes to work on from an animation and performance standpoint was the showdown between Steve and Malgosha, particularly the triple-knife gag. When I first read the script, I was immediately drawn to the ridiculous gimmick where Malgosha repeatedly tries to stab Steve with knives she insists she doesn't have. It was such an absurd yet hilarious concept that I couldn't wait to see how it would play out." VFX character designs for "A Minecraft Movie." Source: Wētā FX Creating Malgosha involved significant collaborative efforts, with motion-capture performer Allan Henry providing the physical performance and vocal inspiration. His humorous interactions with Jack Black, who portrayed Steve, significantly influenced Malgosha's animation. 'I've known Allan for almost 15 years," Estey started. "We've done endless motion capture sessions together since the early days of the first Hobbit films. Not only is he an incredible stunt performer and actor, but he's also one of the funniest people I've ever met. We're constantly cracking each other up on set, even though we do have to remind ourselves that we're there to get work done. You can imagine my excitement when I thought of the humor Allan would bring to this scene. Then, of course, there's Jack Black, someone I've been a massive fan of (I've even been known to belt out an occasional karaoke rendition of 'Tribute' or 'Wonderboy')." FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder He continued, 'To see Jack Black and Allan Henry — two people I hold in the highest regard for their comedic talent — bring this [triple-knife attack] scene to life on set was unforgettable. They ad-libbed plenty of new lines and had the entire crew in stitches with their performance. The two of them even came up with the idea for Malgosha to add the line, 'sneak attaaackk…,' on her final throw as she keeled over onto her face (Allan's physical humor knows no bounds). Jared would run the entire scene for each take to give them freedom to explore the humor, and at the end of every take, when Allan would be face-planted with his bum in the air and Jared would yell 'cut,' almost the entire crew of 100 people would burst out laughing. This happened on every take.' Estey recalled, 'Realizing the humor had been elevated beyond the script by these two comedians placed a great responsibility on us in animation—to make sure that the humor carried through to Malgosha's digital performance without anything getting lost in translation. When Rachel House then provided her vocal performance, we folded that into what Allan had established on set with Jack, along with what our animation department had developed for her unique style of motion and behavior.' 'Seeing the final scene come together and hearing people laugh and talk about its hilarity during screenings was an incredible payoff," Estey concluded. 'That kind of validation, where something you loved working on connects with the audience, is incredibly gratifying. For me, this was one of the most thrilling and satisfying scenes of the film to tackle." A Minecraft Movie is of course full of many more characters and creatures, from Dennis himself to the Piglins and Bee, and I'll continue speaking with Wētā FX when I review the home entertainment release of A Minecraft Movie – that's coming up, so stay tuned and check back soon!
Forbes
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
‘The Minecraft Movie' Tops $825 Million As Biggest Blockbuster Of 2025
The Minecraft Movie tops $825 million heading into the weekend, building on its huge lead as 2025's biggest blockbuster ahead of summer movie season. Jack Black stars in "The Minecraft Movie." With a fourth weekend worldwide gross north of $60 million, including about $38 million internationally and nearly $23 million domestic, Minecraft is eyeing a fifth weekend global haul of $25-30 million and a running total likely north of $850 million. The Minecraft Movie enjoyed much early fanfare and even some cultural controversy over audience-participation trends making a mess of screening rooms, sneaking live animals into theaters, and generally acting like attendees of a Rocky Horror Picture Show cult-classic screening. But since that rowdy early period, things seem to have calmed quickly and considerably, with Minecraft quickly losing headlines to Sinners' upset opening weekend victory and continued huge weekend grosses in a packed second weekend. Indeed, Sinners deserves all of the attention it's getting and more, as does Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith for its own surprise second-place finish last weekend, and The Accountant 2 for delivering at the higher end of estimates despite the rest of the top-tier weekend box office performers all enjoying stronger than expected showings. However, The Minecraft Movie's quieter presence in the weekend headlines doesn't mean it's lost a step at the box office. Holding steady at #5 after a month into release, with such an impressive fourth-weekend cume, speaks volumes about Minecraft's brand popularity, Warner's marketing of the film, and the work that went into making it more than simply a cheap cash-in on a brand name. A huge part of the film's success is due to the way the Wētā FX team – including VFX Supervisor Sheldon Stopsack and Animation Supervisor Kevin Estey – adapted the world of the game and its characters faithfully yet in a way that translates well into a feature film alongside live-action performances and sets. Estey explained, 'Regardless of their individuality, one challenge remained constant: to balance the stylized world of Minecraft with a realistic approach that could be convincing when introducing human actors into the world. Everything had to be real enough to be believed, but not so real that it lost connection with the aesthetic game. This was always on our mind and guided us throughout production.' That can be a tough balance, keeping fans of the game and mainstream audiences all happy. Part of that balance includes tone and pacing, which I feel work strongly in The Minecraft Movie's favor as another example of both the game and film sharing a core element that drives popularity. Stopsack points to this as a significant reason the film works, telling me, 'To me, the sheep represents everything this movie stands for. It's goofy, fun, and innocent, not taking itself too seriously. Yet, it is incredibly well-thought-out and carefully crafted. A large portion of this movie's success is due to the particular and smart humour that Jared brought to it. For me, the sheep embodies all of that.' I've got a series of articles coming up full of details about Wētā's work on The Minecraft Movie, so be sure to watch for that this weekend and next week. The combination of factors are strong enough, in fact, that as an aside I can't help wondering what would've happened if Warner made a swap and Superman opened in early-April while The Minecraft Movie took the July 11th date instead. Might Superman have stood a better chance of breakout success without as much like-minded competition, while Minecraft still offered a stand-out viewing experience and all of the same powerful base of support and built-in fandom. Nevertheless, Minecraft is dominating the spring release frame easily and should manage to hold well next weekend when Thunderbolts* kicks off the summer movie season with a probable $80 million domestic bow and north of $100 million overseas, for what I expect could be a $200 million worldwide MCU opening if audience word-of-mouth is as positive as critical reviews. I suspect The Minecraft Movie will hold onto its lead as 2025's highest-grossing film until Jurassic World: Rebirth has been out a couple of weeks or so. As I explained in my summer movie analysis and predictions, there are only a few other summer filmscapable of challenging Minecraft's and Rebirth's likely eventual totals. If those films – Fantastic Four: First Steps and maybe Superman or Thunderbolts* – play where I expect, lower than $1 billion and closer to $900 million or less, then The Minecraft Movie should keep its 2025 second-place ranking all the way through holiday season in December. The Minecraft Movie put together a fun, funny, exciting family experience that could beat my bullish expectations and top $900 million by the end of its run. Summer has arrived and kids are out of school, and as we all know, if you build it they will come.
