What do you do when you’re about to release one of the year’s biggest films? If you’re Warner Bros., you drop a trailer for one of the most anticipated films of the following year. With millions of people buying tickets for BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE, it makes sense that the studio would have a trailer for A MINECRAFT MOVIE play to a large captive audience. It’s the classic passing of the baton.
Over the past few decades there has been a popular narrative that video games don’t translate to film, that they are doomed to box office failure. While that may have been true a decade ago, it’s not that cut and dry today. As with any other genre, there are hits and misses. For every SUPER MARIO BROS, TOMB RAIDER, and FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDYS, there’s a MORTAL KOMBAT, ASSASSIN’S CREED, and NEED FOR SPEED.
On the heels of the stunning success of MARIO, SONIC THE HEDGEHOG and FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S, however, video game adaptations have been on a recent downswing. Despite decent reviews, GRAN TURISMO couldn’t find an audience, and BORDERLANDS arrived in theaters DOA.
The video game genre has matured. And with other genres, some will succeed, and some will fail. Having said that, family-oriented-animated and hybrid titles seem more bulletproof than their live-action counterparts. And that’s where MINECRAFT comes in.
With sales of 300M units, MINECRAFT is the biggest-selling video game of all time—and the second place game is not even close. GRAND THEFT AUTO V is a full 100M units behind MINECRAFT. As you can see from the trailer, Warner Bros. has gone the hybrid route, placing real actors Jason Momoa and Jack Black against CG backgrounds. The film appears to play younger, perhaps courting a PG rating like SONIC 2 and MARIO.
If you have any doubt about the film’s aspirations, you need to look no further than the title. Rather than just calling it MINECRAFT, Warner Bros. is going with A MINECRAFT MOVIE, which echoes THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE.
As for the trailer, unfortunately, it was met with mixed reviews. One criticism centers on the use of real-life actors in a CG environment. It’s unclear why that’s a problem, but hey, the internet loves to pick a fight. What remains to be seen is if the pushback is real or just jockeying for the snarkiest comment.
As for The Quorum’s analysis, we look at the data. And based on a very early read, the numbers look pretty good. Let’s take a closer look.
As expected, we’re comparing MINECRAFT to MARIO ($146M) and SONIC 2 ($72M). Looking at awareness, MINECRAFT (dark yellow and represented by a single point) is right in line with MARIO (light yellow) and SONIC 2 (brown). That’s a good sign.
Things look different when looking at interest. MINECRAFT (dark brown and represented by a single point) arrived with 40% interest, exactly where SONIC 2 (black) was at the same distance from release. Both are well behind SONIC (light blue) at 50%.
This is just the first of many data points to come. And we won’t judge a film based on an initial fielding we conducted before BEETLEJUICE opened. But it does suggest that MINECRAFT could be on a path closer to SONIC 2’s $72M rather than MARIO’s $146M. Both outcomes would probably make the studio pretty happy.
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