If the queues outside my local cinema are any indication, A Minecraft Movie is set to become some sort of 21st-century Gone With The Wind and potentially displace several major world faiths by number of followers. But bad news for anyone attending the flick just to catch a glimpse of popular streamer Rachell 'Valkyrae' Hofstetter: she's mysteriously not in it anymore and is keeping schtum about why. But it might not be hard to put two and two together here.
Before A Minecraft Movie launched, Valkyrae was all set to join a bunch of other streamers in getting a short cameo in the film, but in a recent stream she revealed that her appearance had been cut.
"I'm not gonna touch too much on it," said the streamer, but she confirmed that she would have gotten roughly equal screentime that other people making cameos got: "which is like 30 seconds" or so.
Alas, it was not to be, and Valkyrae didn't say why. She did seem to suggest there was a behind-the-scenes fracas though: "I would much rather not have that 30 seconds than be sued. So it’s all good, okay?" After all, she continued "It really was a wonderful 10 days in New Zealand for that 30 seconds… I feel like things could have been so much worse, you know what I mean? That’s all I’m going to say about it."
And that's all you get, besides a brief follow-up from Valkyrae that "It’s not even Minecraft. It’s not even their fault," that her cameo was cut. Still, it's worth remembering that last September, Valkyrae made headlines when she called out Minecraft Movie star Jason Momoa for behaviour she claims she saw on set.
"I just saw him, like, mistreat some of the crew and it was pretty disappointing," the streamer said last year. "He was just angry, like really mad and, like, yelling. So I was like, man, this is not a good work environment. Like, I would not be happy working under these conditions… so yeah, I would probably have to say that was probably the worst, like, celebrity thing I've seen."
Could that have poisoned the relationship between Valkyrae and Warner Bros, leading to her cameo getting axed from the final film? It seems likely to me, especially with the streamer seemingly relieved to have dodged some kind of legal bullet. But that's speculation on my part: Valkyrae's not saying and I doubt Warner Bros will be enthusiastic to dredge the matter back up either. Nevertheless, I've reached out to Warner for comment on this story, and will update if I hear back.
