Jennifer Coolidge will co-star in a film adaptation of the video game Minecraft – which also has Jason Momoa and Jack Black attached.
Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess is currently shooting the film in New Zealand while Warner Bros, Vertigo and Legendary are producing and distributing, according to Deadline.
Emma Myers, Danielle Brooks, and Sebastian Eugene Hansen are also cast in Minecraft, which has been slated for an April 2025 release.
Coolidge joins the cast in an unspecified role, having previously starred in HBO series The White Lotus as Tanya (who will not be coming back for season three, it has been said). She is also famous (infamous?) for playing 'Stifler's mom' Jeanine in the American Pie series of films.
Momoa’s involvement was confirmed back in 2022.
It is collaboration that no-one saw coming, with fans joking, “Never thought that Minecraft and Jason Momoa would be used in a sentence together like this,” and, “Live-Action Minecraft movie with Jason Momoa was not on my bingo card for 2025,” on Twitter.
The film has apparently been in the works for a decade. At different points, directors Rob McElhenney (Mythic Quest) and Peter Sollett (Raising Victor Vargas) were attached to the project, as were writers Jason Fuchs (Wonder Woman) and Allison Schroeder (Frozen II).
What hasn’t been stated, however, is how the game might be turned into a narrative screenplay with a trailer yet to drop.
Minecraft has become the best-selling video game in history since being fully released in 2011, with more than 300 million copies sold. It has 140 million active players every month, according to a figure revealed at Minecraft Live 2023.
The game challenges players to build on terrain and curate a farm, small holding or property with various modes to choose from. It remains hugely popular among YouTube streamers, and was even how the 200-million-subscriber MrBeast started out.
The game has given creative potential for fans to create a digital version of London landmarks, with one man spending 100 hours painstakingly recreating Pimlico Tube station.
One mode has even seen Mayor of London Sadiq Khan making a blocky cameo alongside other figures at City Hall. Greenpeace, meanwhile, has launched a Minecraft-style game with the aim of encouraging environmental activism.
Minecraft is owned by Microsoft. The tech giant acquired the game, and its owner Mojang, in 2015 for $2.5 billion.
